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monday was a day at home for esther.

in the morning kezia and i went to explore taupo shopping centre

we dodged rain showers, found matching things in charity shops and saw some mannequins that looked like a friend of ours

in the afternoon jane went shopping with kezia and esther and i watched forest gump

the weather cleared up a bit in the evening making for some nice photos out the window

so i drove up the road a bit to take some pictures with my tripod of the sunset

it was still a bit chilly though

when i got home esther had gone back to proper bed and the holiday jigsaw had begun

back to work today for me.  lots to do.  that’s good

both the girls had friends over today and went to a japanese tea place.  jane made good headway with lesson preparations

pearl came back and is rather fat.  but it might all be wind

holidays. yay

day 1 of the holiday was the drive to taupo via rotorua

we stopped for the loos at hobbiton.  esther and me were feeling pretty ill at this stage

we all perked up (except me) at rotorua for the luge

there was a jelly bean shop selling some rather unpleasant flavours

eventually we made it to our holiday house which was really cold.  so we lit a fire (or jane did) and the place soon warmed up and became rather smoky

we were up at 7 this morning to pack up and finally head home after our 7 days in taupo.

i took the wrong turn at the municipal dump so we went back via rotorua

so we took advantage of my mistake by having a look at some of our favourite mud pools

we had our lunch at Tirau which is famous for its corrugated iron building sculptures

you know the world is in a bad way when a church advertises ‘co-operating’ as something that sets it apart from other churches

 

we also stopped off at cambridge to use the superloo

and we’re finally home. and some nice people have been looking after our post and guinea pigs

and our house smells nice.  work for me tomorrow, but the girls have another week off (although jane may be teaching a lesson tomorrow and has teacher training on thursday/friday)

here’s a video

A thermal place.  An arty cafe. Lakeside sitting.  Museum. Gypsy fair.

Guess what we did today.? That’s right. Huka prawn Park.

Esther was feeling well enough to be out and about today so we headed there this morning and spent many hours fishing for prawns. Only jane was successful, catching and then eating her own prawn.

After lunch in the prawn cafe we drove over to watch the rapids, this time from the right location where it was more dramatic

On the way back to our holiday house e speed at a glass blowing place, a honey farm, back to the prawns and a drive round some posh butts of taupo…

This evening we’ve been playing balderdash which the girls are very good at.

Good that esther is feeling lots better although you wouldn’t know it from this picture.

I went for a walk first thing this morning as the girls were still asleep.  In the end esther was still ill so i walked for for hours eventually ending at huka falls via a bit of an indirect route.

Jane picked me up to save me waking back!

In the afternoon kez and I went to see some rapids which are turned on the times a day as they let water out of the dam. Unfortunately were in slightly the wrong place so didn’t get the best view.

Then we went to a thermal area called craters of the moon.

This evening esther was feeling well enough for the whole family to go to the local got pools but she probably want really up to it.

I took a couple of hundred photos with my cameras today but my phone camera was not behaving so you’ve got another short video clip of thermal activity instead.

This morning was mostly sailing around lake taupo on a sale boat. Although there want enough wind for it to actually sale so we went along by electric motor instead.

It was quite a big boat with just 9 passengers for our nearly the hour trip. Kezia drove for about an hour of that on the way back much to the delight of the skipper.

The tour was to look at the Maori carvings but we just enjoyed pootling about while lying on giant luxury bean bags watching the water go by!

Jane had prawns for lunch when we were back in land. Then we drove over to the huka falls which were quite amazing

Esther was feeling very tired so we came home. Kez and jane went shopping whilst others did snoozing..

Then this evening there was some Miss Marples watching.

I did get some video again today but 3 seconds doesn’t seem worth the effort.

All the holiday photos are from my phone but the way so apologies for the quality. Usual visual summary will be provided when we are back

After a very slow start we awoke to a lovely sunny day and realised e could see the snowy peaks in the Tongariro national park from our holiday bach window.

So we loaded ourselves in to the car with our warmest clothes and drove the hour and a half to get there.

It was lunchtime when e drive by the chateau so e to that as a sign e should stop and snack whilst enjoying the view of one of the three big composite (and active) volcanoes.

We did see huge steam plumes on Tongariro on the way home but otherwise the world stayed stable for us today

After lunch we got a lift pass and went to a cafe up in the ski area where esther bumped in to a couple of school friends.

On the way home we stopped at lots of places for photos and saw a very old info film about volcanoes which must have been fairly modern looking in the 1980s when it was made.

Then this evening we sent esther to bed early for further recoveries (she is feeling much better today)  and I’ve spend over an hour not managing to download photos of my camera due to a very old network…

No idea if the video clip above will work. Can someone let me know!

Here’s a picture of jane and me at rotorua yesterday which I forgot to post