Whakapapa and Matamata

The past few weeks has been more of the same here in Ohakune. We're generally pretty busy Friday-Monday, then things get quieter midweek.

We had a nice day out at Whakapapa ski field at a tourism operators day. It started with a scenic chairlift ride up the mountain, then a free coffee and muffin and a talk about the facilities that are open through the summer. The secenery was pretty cool and it was good to see the difference between winter and summer.

The weather has been really hot, normally 20+ degrees during heat of the day which has been pretty good. We had a few days up in Matamata with Tracie last week which was cool too. We arrived on the Monday lunchtime, and had a wander around town which is loads bigger than Ohakune. We did a walk to a waterfall on the Tuesday, then I drove home on Wednesday for practice at my new rugby club, Ruapehu. Robyn caught the bus home on Friday, and has arranged with Tracie to go back for a full week and help out at Matamata Primary school which should be good.

Back to Ohakune

We had a little change of plan on the farm and we're now back in Ohakune, and at Canoe Safaris. We arrived back last Monday and after a couple of nights in the honeymoon suite aka room 1 upstairs, moved all of our stuff back into the room we had over the winter.
We're doing the same sort of thing, a bit of housekeeping upstairs and generally trying to help out wherever we can. Everything has been going fantastically, and it feels like we've never been away.

Today we went on a one day river trip with a French family and a couple of guides which was loads of fun. We put in to the river at Cherry Grove, Taumarunui, at about 9am and paddled down to the lavender farm for lunch and Robyn picked up a bar of soap and some lip balm stuff. After a nice picnic lunch we only had about half an hour to Ohinepane where the bus driver met us and drove us back to Ohakune.

The weather has been pretty good since we've been back, a nice change from the west coast, or the 'wet coast'. Earlier this week we did a bike ride to Rangataua Forest (number one on the leaflet). It was a really nice ride, very lush forest, and being used by the NZ Army for a training exercise!

Christmas and New Year

This year was a very different festive season for us. Firstly because it was our first Christmas spent without family, but secondly because it was hot hot hot! Well sort of, after a lot of rain and a few floods it cleared up nicely for Christmas day and Boxing day. We woke up bright and early Christmas day morning to find that Santa had been and left us a stocking each full of goodies which we dived right into. Afterwards we went out to do our usual morning jobs, helping with the milking and feeding the calves and pigs etc. Life on the farm still goes on and unfortunately the cows don’t know its Christmas! After work we came in and had a nice big Christmas day breakfast and opened all the rest of our presents. Thanks very much to everyone who sent us a little something, we were spoilt! We spent the rest of the day with Ant (boss man) at his uncle's house with the rest of his family. It was great to be included in a big family for Christmas. We played a few games of backyard cricket where James laughed at my appalling hand-eye-coordination skills, but it was still good fun! We had a big roast for Christmas dinner, no turkey but lamb instead, after all we are in NZ! We were excused from afternoon milking and had a really fun and relaxing day before heading back to the farm and chatting to people back home. The weather held out nicely for boxing day and we had another relaxing morning playing with all our new things before afternoon milking.
Unfortunately in the week after Christmas we have had a big flood. We couldn’t milk the cows, the road into town was closed and at one point we even lost power! Luckily enough New Years Eve was a gorgeous day. After work we headed into town and had our tea on the beach and watched the sun set over the sea. It was gorgeous! We came home with a bottle of wine and watched the fireworks at the sky tower on the TV and we were the first in the world to toast the new year. New Years Day was another gorgeous day and seen as we had the day off work we went out for a bike ride and then sat by the creek on the farm enjoying the sun.

Happy New Year everyone!