We're still here!

I must start way back at Mother's day, seems long ago. In honour of Mother's day I decided to allow Victoria to indulge in one of her favorite pastimes...wreck-less driving :)

So we drove a few minutes down the highway and came to the "Spring loaded Fun park".
Where for a small few, and brief lesson you get to drive a 4WD vehicle through a custom made park. Not many pictures from this part of the day because I was too busy holding on. It doesn't look like much from the pictures, however let me assure you that Connor was pleading to get out as he saw our guide vehicle take the course ahead of us and disappear over a near verticle drop. If you ever saw the Simpson's episode where Marge is on the airplane and paces back and forth saying "Let me off, let me off, let me off" That's pretty much what it was like for Connor from the back seat.



But being the mean parents we are, we told him to hold on and we carried on over the abyss. I think we were all a little nervous, and made more so by the fact that I started the course and took us over the hill, only to wedge us halfway down and stall the vehicle. Now understand that the sheer vertical sides of the track were about one and a half times the height of the vehicle, but only just wide enough for the width of the vehicle. Out guide had told us that he took the mirrors off the vehicle because he was tired of replacing them.
Of course I calmly started the vehicle and safely navigated the narrow track to the bottom of the hill, all while listening to the urgent pleading of son number one from the back.
After that point the ride was pretty tame and even the kids warmed up after Victoria took over and navigated us through not one but two water/mud obstacles and one tunnel. Connor ended up saying at the end..."That's it" he was thoroughly disappointed that it was over.

The smiles and giggles from my honey while she bounced us up and down the hills were well worth the effort.

After the thrill ride we settled down to lunch overlooking the river valley at the same location.

Then we headed off back down the road and stopped off at the "Kiwi 360" gift shop. There is a complete tour of a working Kiwi orchard, which didn't seem that appealing to us. We did however enjoy the gift shop, and may very well return to gather some souvenirs for ourselves.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing at home.












This past weekend Victoria had a seminar to attend in Auckland, it took up Friday and half of Saturday. On the drive up we were about 20 minutes from the hotel on the north shore of Auckland when the clouds opened up and brought traffic to a near standstill on the #1 State highway through Auckland. So we crawled along for a while but eventually made it to the hotel in time for the welcome lunch, which of course the boys and i were not invited to :(
So we went to the Buffalo cafe across the street in the pouring rain and had a nice quiet lunch.

We learned later that some places had gotten 12omm of rain that afternoon, sure glad we no longer have a basement to flood!


We stayed at the "Spencer on Byron" courtesy of Siemens, the hearing aid manufacturer that was holding the seminar. A nice hotel but it's now Westin. We did have a full kitchen and a great view. The boys and I even hit the outdoor, rooftop, pool. It was a little cool on Friday so we stayed mostly in the spa pool. However Saturday was a stunner and we managed to get in the regular pool before checkout.






So while waiting for the seminar to end the boys and I headed to the beach, 2 blocks away from the hotel.












After a quick bite of lunch we headed further north to Leigh, a quiet little one store town full of B&B's. The one we stayed at was set right on the shore, which in this case consisted of a rocky cliff.

We walked along a coastal trail in the afternoon, then out to dinner at the sawmill cafe, which true to it's name was in an old sawmill complete with huge ceiling to floor band saw.

We were planning to take a glass bottom boat ride around goat island, a mere 10 minutes from the B&B on Sunday, however high winds and rain led to us canceling due in part to the fact that kids would like get seasick, but also the fact that the day before the company itself had canceled due to poor visibility.

So we went with plan 'b' and headed to the reptile park, which was half price due to the foggy windows on some of the displays...I thought it was fine, but the nice older gentleman that is the operator had given the discount and who am to argue. "Pat" was the hit of the trip.


I guess that's all for now, quiet weekend coming up. We will hopefully be heading out to a holiday park, (campground) for the long weekend....The queen's birthday don't you know. Hope everyone had a good may long, it looked like great weather.

Ka kite ano