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.