Reflections on the North Island and more....

Christmas Day was like no other......we had a photo shoot on the beach (I think we fooled a few of you, yes Dave?) followed by a delicious breakfast of French Toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and champagne and OJ. We are finding camping very difficult......Then we went on a bike tour of the local town, Napier, tinsel, Santa hat and all! A beautiful town with lots of Art Deco buildings. Having worked up a bit of a thirst with our biking, we looked for an appropriate watering hole - found a lovely hotel in the centre of town, and also discovered a rather strange (and very stupid) NZ law. You can't just order a drink on Christmas Day, you have to eat a meal!! Well, we were still quite stuffed from our feast, so we had to trundle back to our campsite with the promise of a cold beer at the end. Then it was off to the beach where we played in the waves and had a great time. The undertow was quite strong, so we didn't go out very far. But due to that, the waves became quite big right at the shoreline, so we had a lot of fun. The beach used to be an old riverbed (hence the black pebbles) that was turned into the coast by an earthquake in 1931. The bonus - no sand in your eyes. The downfall - lots of pebbles in your swimsuit!! And that was our Christmas Day.

We went to a couple of the wineries in the region, including the Mission, which is the photo below. It is the oldest one in NZ and was started by the monks - who else? Beautiful place and we also enjoyed the wine!



We drove from Napier to Castlepoint - a delightful village at the end of the road. Another very windy road at that! Oh, and it was also very windy, as in it blew ALL the time! We climbed almost to the top of Castle Rock, seen below, but did not quite go all the way since the wind would have blown us off (we're not that heavy yet!). The only casualty was my headband blowing away. Errin, super keen eyes, spotted a seal frolicing in the waves, but no whales yet. And as you can see, cars are popular on the beach....but we felt very safe.....



And now to our reflections on the North Island (3000km later)......

• there are no hot guys on this Island
• palm trees & pine trees - who knew they would grow side by side?
• black pebble beaches to silky white sands
• no hot guys on the Island
• lots of one lane-cliff-hugging-exposed-potholed-gravel-coastal roads that require 5 km speeds (tee hee....okay, so I was being careful....precious cargo on board)
• great wine, great beer, great food, great fun, great people but
• no hot guys on this Island
• takes 5 hours to drive somewhere, in Canada it would take 2.5 hours
• Errin almost got $100....for those in the know (she knew she would win...but not yet!!)
• Kiwis have brought camping to another level.....from full sized fridges to coffee grinders, we've seen it all.....and finally...
• there are definitely no hot guys on this Island!!
  

Hopes and Dreams for the South Island........

• hmmmmm, let's think about this....HOT GUYS???
• sunny, hot weather with no wind or rain
• straight roads, no gravel
• hot guys
• whales, not the two legged type either (they have been spotted!)
• hot guys??
• more shopping (because we didn't do enough)
• even more unbelievable NZ scenery
• did we mention, hot guys??

There seems to be a bit of a theme here, but don't worry (Mum's and Nana's) we're very good girls, quite responsible.........;)

We are now in Wellington and will be crossing over tomorrow evening (fingers crossed the Southerly winds stays away for one more day). We shall then embark on a search for a beach that hosts a New Year's Party.....trouble is, we can't remember the name of it. Oh well, I'm sure we will stumble across something.

Until the next episode, have a wonderful New Year's Eve and Day!!

Much love,

Errin & Joan
xoxoxox