well, in no particular order, we walked up a 200m hill in Clevedon Scenic Reserve. i see from the website that the walk we did is ‘suitable for the more experienced tramper’. that’s probably why we all nearly expired from the heat on the way up !
but we got a fantastic view back towards auckland and across the bay to the Coromandel where we stayed for a night at Christmas. anyway, that was our afternoon.
jane got us up early this morning to watch a kids triathalon down in town so we could see how it’s done. it was funny seeing the mountain of bikes for the cycling part of the race
it seems the secret is to put some good flag or other indicator where your bike is. if you’re a parent you also seem to stand against the fencing so you can shout at your kids as they get changed after their swim
looks like ken dodd was in the race
here’s some of the younger athletes having a sneaky peak at the finish line as they waited for their start time
here’s kezia trying to convince me to buy ice-creams. i didn’t.
instead we went to a farmer’s market in a place called Clevedon (not to be confused with Clivedon). these people love pies
and some people were selling brocollini which they spelt wrong.
instead kezia and i had GIANT pain au chocolates (they really were this size, it’s not just a trick of the camera). jane and esther had some funky hungarian pastries.
here’s some more pictures from the scenic reserve. i still can’t believe we live near places like this.
eventually we got down to the carpark and headed back home
then we had about an hour before esther and jane headed off to the millennium swimming pool for esther’s second flippa ball game.
this time the team only lost 1 nil which was an improvement of 8. And esther was nominated as player of the match. i asked what that meant and she said “it means i need to buy the lollies for next week” (lollies being sweets).
here’s esther with a giant seed pod
and here’s some canopy and a board walk over an old quarry
everyone’s having an early night tonight as we’re all exhausted. this week looks like another busy one for me workwise and might involve my first presentation to our CEO (who i know from uk days) and i’m probably down at wellington on tuesday.
sorry to hear about all the snow in the UK again. if you send us a few jiffy bags we’ll pack them with genuine sweaty hot and humid new zealand air and post them back to you. or alternatively, we could arrange some long pipe between here and there and just blow some heat through ? that’s just a couple of ideas for you to think about.
see ya