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day 3 was mostly about waterfalls.  we got the car ferry out of Russell and drove up to KeriKeri via Haruru Falls

we’d seen them last year but the water was much lower

nice to see a rainbow in the spray too

kezia took some of these pictures of our holiday by the way (like the one below).  they are the ones with _850_ in the filename if you are interested

first things first and at KeriKeri i went to an excellent op shop (charity shop) and then we had some lunch

after a mooch round the shops we drove over to the stone store and did the hour long walk to Rainbow Falls.  We saw some other dramatic waterfalls on the way and i think some of the pictures are mixed up.

apologies to any waterfall experts

once we got to rainbow falls we visited the toilets (very welcome) and headed back to where we started.

by then we were quite tired so had hot chips and some cake

we popped in to the local supermarket to get me some more underpants as i’d failed to count how many days worth i would need when purchasing my emergency ones the day before.  (yes, i admit it, it was me who was the mysterious underpants forgetter)

then we finally made it back to the holiday flat (via the ferry) for some holiday jigsawing

jane had her church staff away day today.  the girls had school then tennis (esther) and swimming (kezia).  i had the day off work sick.  hopefully back tomorrow.

 

oh, and i forgot to say, it was just over a year ago that we moved in to this house!

i had work, starting with our church men’s coffee then just usual stuff.

the girls had school and that seems to have gone well for them both

jane met up with some chums, went shopping etc

then this evening we’ve had our life group

there were people taking photos in the office this afternoon.  i had lens envy

Esther was very keen to catch the passenger ferry over to Paihia, to relive happy holiday experiences which we had had with then Laughlands. We also needed some emergency underwear and someone in our party had omitted to pack any.

Then a bit of wandering round Russell before the rain set in.

Here’s the church with bullet holes in it!

And guerrilla knitting. You have to make your own entertainment in NZ

In the afternoon it rained. Luckily the tourist leaflet had some suggestions of things to do it bad weather.

But we went off piste!

A fairly late start for the Funkypancakes. First stop – this cafe.

Next stop was Whangerai, about half way there. We went to a bird rescue place, hoping to see Woof Woof, the talking tui. But he had died since the Rough Guide was written.

We had our lunch in the quarry gardens

Then on to Russell.

church this morning.  then kez went to a friend’s house whilst esther did some admin.

 

then when we were all back at around 4pm we had our first family game of monopoly.

jane won.

back to school for everyone tomorrow so the usual misery has started back up 🙁

Jane and esther went off for an early morning bike ride and then the rest of the day has been partying

the first party was esther’s birthday party for her school chums.  she had 5 friend round and they went ice skating

so after some burgers and cake we drove over to Avondale

they had an ice skating tutor for the first 30 minutes which gave them enough confidence to enjoy the rest of the 3 hour skating session

this wheel chair guy arrived on his own at the start of the session and had a brilliant time skidding round in circles for a bit

this evening we went to the church staff mid winter party which was excellent.  great food, crackers secret santas and all that stuff.

merry christmas everyone!

three old volcanoes on the way to work …

i was back at my conference today which ended up as a bit of a sing along with a New Zealand youtube comedian/singer Matt Mulholland . he did an voice only version of a Katy Perry song (he’s  like the Flying Pickets for a modern generation).  He gave a performance as part of his talk (someone uploaded it here if you want to watch it all), and then the conference MC singing a song about social media.  all rather strange and not quite what i expected from a telcoms conference

we ended with another maori song too (here’s some people singing it on youtube)

i think the girls went to pak ‘n’ save to celebrate the last day of their school holidays and they had swimming this evening

then tonight we watched some family telly.

hi, i’ve just updated the email subscription and RSS feed source.  if you spot anything is broken, let me know.

hopefully most people won’t notice any difference …

dave@funkypancake.com

Dave was at the conference again today. Here is a photo of someone or other.

The girls each had a friend over for the day and this evening we went to see the film Brave. It was for free as Dave had won 2 tickets courtesy of the British Council of NZ and I have a book of vouchers. It was quite good.