Our pool! 

Living in luxury at Kimi Ora Spa 

View from Kia Ora Spa 

Cheers! 

Under the fly in Abel Tasman 

Arty shot by Nige 

Kaiteriteri Beach 

Seagull at the end of the rainbow 

Kite surf's up dude! 

Windy beach2 

Windy beach 

Nige is Turkish Delighted! 

what are the lads up to? 

Nige helps the birthday girl out 

Slippery Nipples and Green frogs 

Birthday cake! 

Crazy kids! 

Birthday dinner 2 

Enough chocolate krispie cakes to feed an army! 

Yummy chocolate krispie cakes 

Sunny evening on Donnelly Flats 

Mmnn...tuna curry! 

Perfect! 

water babies 

the green slopes of the Tararuas 

View from the Tararuas over the Wairapa 

Nige and Mount Holdsworth 

Girls on top! 

What a view! 

Learning to map read with Eug! 

Nige and Jen go bush!

To Nige it was just another of Jen's schemes, which he thought would involve him spending the weekend stuck in the forest with a load of weird beardy trampers! Well, there were certainly beardy trampers involved - see picture! - but the Bushcraft Course was great fun and even Nige admitted to enjoying it!!

The course was run by the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club, and involves a weekend away in the Tararua Forest Park, sleeping under canvas, and learning essential skills to survive in the New Zealand bush, like crossing rivers, packing the right gear, putting up a fly tent, cooking thai tuna curry over a tiny gas stove and many more...



Cosy together under the fly

Cruising through the Wairarapa!

On Sat 5th March, we went for a day trip to the Wairarapa as there wasn't much going on in Wellington for a change and it was a beautiful sunny day!

We first went to Martinborough Fair, which was a gorgeous collection of stalls selling all kinds of arts and crafts, set around and in Martinborough Square. Jen wanted to buy lots of gorgeous things, but sadly was restrained by Nige :-( It was lovely just to mooch around though, and sample the home-made food and drink!

Afterwards, we went for a cruise around Lake Palliser, so that Jen could have her first try at driving our new car, named The Mighty One after we watched The Motorcycle Diaries! I was cruising along quite happily on a completely deserted road, practising changing gear, and all that hard stuff, when we came round a corner to be confronted with a massive herd of cows in the road!! So at least I got to practise an emergency stop too!!

To round our lovely chillin' day off nicely, we went to Greytown, which is a really cute town full of lovely old wooden buildings, cafe's and antique shops. We went to The White Swan for a drink and a platter and then cruised home, leaving the lovely sunny Wairarapa for rainy Wellington!



Lake Wairarapa (and Jen)

Lake Wairarapa2

Carnival time!

On Saturday 26th Feb, Cuba St came alive for its annual Carnival! The parade starts at about 9pm, so we went to join the thousands of other people packing the streets to watch. There were lots of cool floats and marching bands and so on, but we didn't get there early enough for a good spot so we didn't have the best view! We stayed out after the parade to watch a few of the bands on stage including a cool Brazilian drumming band.


Cuba St Carnival

Beware the dragon!

Round the Bays 2005

On Sunday 20th Feb, Jen did the 7km Round the Bays run with 8300 other happy punters! The weather was gorgeous, and Wellington's famous wind was behind us for the second half of the run, which helped our tired legs!! At the finish we got a banana and a chocolate bar - yum! but no medal :-( Bring on the Half Marathon in June!!

Kayaking lessons!

Kayaking is a very popular sport on Wellington Harbour - if the weather's fine you can hire a kayak from Ferg's Kayaks on the waterfront and paddle off round to Oriental Bay and beyond.

On Sat 19th Feb, the Wellington Tramping Club organised a wee introductory kayaking morning so Jen dragged Nige along to learn how to paddle!

We had a great time - it was a perfect sunny calm day, and we all paddled over to the beach at Oriental Bay, learnt about paddling techniques, practised capsizing and climbing back in!! and then cruised around the harbour for a while. Jen was hooked!!