Blogs from Coromandel, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 30

He's a 7 week old English Springer Spaniel. Or "Careve Claude", his pedigree name. (I wanted "Careve Claude d'Argaville" but was overruled) After a couple of weeks he is mostly well behaved, chipped, partly innoculated, and unremittingly cute. We are very proud to announce that he can climb stairs, tho not yet descend them. All single bloke blog readers take note - puppies are babe magnets. He gets alotta respect. All is well here. We are in the Coromandel, where the beer is cold and the weather mainly fine. Nick S dropped by sailing mid-week and after some rendez-vous difficultulties based on ambiguous local placenaming conventions we got together for dinner and an excellent sail with Mrs S and some friends of theirs. Andrew G is here also this week. Shootin' some trouble. I start work ... read more

Fri 4th Jan: I arrived in Auckland at 0025 and headed off to collect my rucksack. I dropped my hand luggage by my feet and the next thing I know, this very cute trainee sniffer dog is at my feet! Fortunately that's not the reason I've been so slow updating my blog (just having a good time and being lazy on that front!!!). It apparently picked up the smell of my marmite and branston pickle, LOL!!! After that trauma, go my bag and found my shuttle waiting for me. 40 mins later I arrived at the Fat Camel hostel and checked in. I got to my private room and just about ready to fall into bed. Was not impressed when the fan didn't work so I actually spent about 5hrs trying to sleep in a sweat ... read more

Queda solo una semana de "vacaciones"Despues de año nuevo pasamos dos dias tranquilos en Whangamata y luego volivimos a FLAXMILL, donde estaba el Montego Bay un velero que nos llevaria a pasear. Despues de ahi fuimos Hot water beach (Playa de agua caliente). AL dia siguiente hicimos una caminata a una cascada en el parque Wenworth. El sabado fuimos a Tairua para que los chicos pesquen. Ese Domingo Russ y Steph volvieron a Auckland y nosotros seguimos primero a Waihi y luego a Thames, Coromandel Town y Fletcher bay.... read more

We have spent a couple of days in Roturua in the centre of North Island. Roturua has magma quite close to the earth’s surface and has hot springs and sulphurous mud pools. The photos don’t do justice to the smell which is all pervading. The landscape is difficult to get your head round - hot plopping mud and sulphur springs close to normal plants and buildings constructed on what appears to be solid ground. We met up with the Norths again for a few days in the Kauaeranga Valley at the South end of the Coromandel peninsula near Thames which originally developed because of the 19c gold rush. The pace of life here seems to be zzzzzzz.... (sorry fell asleep). We stayed in a wood cabin in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. It ... read more

Yeah - today we get our car! We were collected at 11.00am and by 11.30am we were driving out of the car lot with our new friend for the next 24 days. We have named her Juicy Lucy - AKA The Silver Bullet (although we soon found out she didn't like hills and became more of a dud bullet, but we love her anyway!). After negogiating our way out of Auckland (well, rather Diane drove us out) we headed to the Coromandel Penisular. Not much to see in Coromandel town but very pretty none the less and we took the coastal road so we could see the sea (very good for scenic views but not good for Lucy as it was very hilly, she likes to take her time up them and we know how she ... read more