Merry Christmas from Down Under!

Merry Christmas to all from Down Under! We just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. We are doing very well and are really enjoying our cruise! The photo of the red blossoms are from the pohutukawa tree which is the New Zealand Christmas tree. Sending you a little bit of New Zealand and good wishes for a very Merry Christmas. Love you, Gord, Kathleen, Lauren and Cameron xoxoxoxo

Paihia

We had a wonderful place to stay for our last week in NZ. We were in Paihia in the Bay of Islands where we were fortunate to stay at Club Paihia. The first 3 photos on this posting are of Club Paihia. This was a great place to relax after a busy 2 months of travelling. The kids seemed to be in the pool more often than not. The 3 beach photos are of Tauranga Bay. We went to this beach as well as Matauri Bay one day earlier in the week. The Bay of Islands area is a beautiful area of New Zealand. Lauren and Cameron also enjoyed a few hours at Active World where they were able to swing, slide, jump and balance on the many Extreme Sports activities that were at this site. The last photo is of two wonderful guys from Wellington. Their names are Matt and Devin and Cameron took a special shining to them (and them to him!). They spent many hours together in the pool and they also invited him to the day at Active World. They certainly had a great time together. On our last day at the resort we heard a knock on the door and then loud footsteps running up the stairs. When we opened the door there was a gift bag with a postcard written from Santa (or could it have been Matt and Devin?). In the present was a New World grocery bag for Gord (New World was my favourite grocery store in NZ), a postcard and a New Zealand sticker for Kathleen, an ‘I Love NZ’ mini T-shirt for Lauren and a skateboard for Cameron. We couldn’t believe our eyes. Matt and Devin are representative of the many wonderful Kiwis who we have met in this wonderful country. Thanks guys for making our last week in New Zealand so special! We arrived back in Auckland yesterday and I returned our rental car (yeah, I drove over 6 000 km in NZ and I managed to stay on the left the entire time!). I am currently looking out the window of a coffee shop and am viewing the Volendam, the Holland America cruise ship that we will be boarding today for Australia. We are so excited! We can hardly believe that our 2 months in NZ are almost over. We will still be in NZ for another week as we visit various ports along the coast. I will try to publish one more post prior to Xmas from the ship.

Surfin' Raglan!

Suring in Raglan was definitely one of the top highlights of our trip! Gord, Lauren and Cameron took a surfing lesson from Katie upon our arrival in Raglan. Kathleen decided to stay ashore in order that she could get some pics of her surfers. It was such an incredible experience and we all did very well. Katie was very impressed with both of the kids and how well they did. Our lesson was 3 and 1/2 hours and it passed by very quickly. The kids could hardly wait for more. We took the next day off and then went back out for more. But this time we took Mom! Kathleen did a great job and was up on her surf board very quickly! She had a great time and it was nice for our whole family to surf together. Of course, now the kids want to buy their own boards so they can surf in Australia and bring them home to play on in Trout Lake! A fabulous time!

Digging for Dinner!

We had some wonderful meals while staying at the Backpackers in Raglan! Lauren and Cameron loved hanging out with all of the young travellers from Europe and now can hardly wait to travel on their own when they are 20! Both have already started thinking about who they can travel with when they won't need Mom and Dad anymore. We ate 4 dinners at the Backpackers and Lauren and Cameron got in on the cooking on all of them. It was great to have the help and great fun cooking with them. Lauren made an amazing salad one evening and a fabulous grilled vegetable salad with melted goat cheese another evening. Cameron was in charge of the BBQ the first evening and he grilled some delicious chicken to accompany Lauren's salad. A memorable meal will be the seafood pasta dish that Gord and Cameron made with the cockles and mussels that they dug for on the beach. I'm guessing that we collected over 200 cockles and a handful of mussels from under the sandy beach at the ocean. We steamed these up in some white wine and made a wonderful linguine pasta! With this wonderful dinner we also enjoyed fresh homemade bread that Lauren, Cameron and Kathleen baked from scratch. It was a lot of fun to do all the cooking that we did at the Backpackers! Thanks for helping out Lauren and Cameron! Great chefs in the making!

Pancake Rocks

We had a quick stop on our way up the West Coast of the South Island in a little town called Punakaiki. Although we were only there a brief time we visited the Pancake Rocks which we thought were blog worthy. The Pancake Rocks are limestone rocks that are stacked high above the sea. Huge swells of ocean water has eroded the limestone cliffs over time into fantastical shapes. A pretty neat stop along the way!