Christmas 2011

This year for Christmas we hung out a friend's farm which was pretty cool. On Christmas eve another friend of ours arrived back in Ohakune on the train and we met him with a banner on the platform, not sure everyone else on the train/platform knew what was happening! Everyone then came down to ours for lunch and Robyn whipped up some venison wraps. We then had a nice afternoon sitting in the sun having a few beers, before moving on the Canadian Embassy for dinner and a sleep in my case.
Christmas day morning we unwrapped our presents and did a bit of Skyping, and I finally signed up to Facebook....peer pressure!
Then it was out to the farm for a lovely big lunch and couple of games of volleyball, and secret santa present swapping. We ended up with some locally produced honey and a recipe book from Womens Health magazine. The farm house had lovely gardens and a few horses, one of which took a shine to Robyn... We ended the day in our little tent camping out under the stars with a view of Mt Ruapehu, another different Christmas for us.
Boxing day was pretty low key as there were some sore heads on the farm, not ours though! Sheree whipped up some lovely eggy breakfast for us and we then dropped the Canadians off, came home and just chilled out.
We have a pretty busy week here at Canoe Safaris until New Year, then a few busy weeks in January. There's lots of pics from Christmas on Facebook anyway!

Summer in NZ

Summer has officially started in New Zealand but we are still waiting for the weather to settle down! James has been really busy driving the canoe trips into and out of the river with plenty of school groups going at this time of year.
Luckily we had really nice weather last month for James’ birthday and had a mini break in Mt Maunganui at the beach. We had a great 3 days away in a hotel right on the harbour front and spent our time shopping, sitting on the beach and walking up the Mt itself.
Since then I have been on a river trip with my Auntie Julie who I hadn’t seen in 10 years. We went for 3 days along the Whanganui River. It was so much fun to catch up and get to know each other again. We did more laughing than paddling! And probably more eating and drinking too... The trip goes from Whokohoro to Pipiriki and takes in the Bridge to Nowhere on day 2, it’s an amazing trip. James and I have done it before last year, but this time there was me, Julie, 2 other women and our guide all in the one big boat.
Not long until Christmas time now although it doesn’t feel like it at all with it being summer, but still plenty of mince pies and Christmas films to enjoy!