Christmas in New Zealand

---

We rented a car and drove to Whakatane to meet Steve and his family and spent the Christmas with them. We had a really nice time with them and enjoyed our first Christmas outside Finland. In New Zealand the Christmas is the warmest time of the year so we had barbeques, played games, went for beach and ate a lot. So it felt more like the midsummer festival in Finland.

We also did some sightseeing around Whakatane and visited the town of Kawerau. Entering the town brought us memories of Oulu, feeling the familiar scent of the paper mill in our noses. Apparently this is not most popular tourist attraction around the area, judging on the laughter of Steve and Richard when they heard of our visit. However, we learned that when the mill was built a lot of finnish workers moved there to assemble the machines and thus there is still a lot of finns living around there.

On the way back we made a brief visit to Rotorua to see the volcanic mud pools. Then we drove to Tauranga to meet Sam and his family. We spent the boxing day by the pool with Sam and Eve and later in the evening had a barbeque dinner. Sami got the duty of barbequeing since it is always the men who do it in New Zealand. And since being in New Zealand the meat was lamb. And good it was. We had a nice time but all good comes to end and the next day we had our flight to Santiago, Chile.

---

Photos

Beach close to Whakatane
There are miles of amazing beaches in Bay of Plenty

Ohope beach
Ohope beach close to Whakatane. It goes on for miles and miles!

Maori statue at Toi´s Pa
On a viewpoint close to Whakatane

Walking around Kohi Point
With full stomachs after the christmas meal we went for a walk with Richard and Steve.

Enjoying the view
Down by the beach is a statue marking the place where the polynesians first landed on New Zealand over 1000 years ago.

Mud pools in Rotorua
The volcanic pools look nice but the smell is less pleasant.

Boxing day barbecue
Grilling lamb for the first time. The result was eatable, atleast no one dared to complain ;)

Comments

[isoJ]

HV
Vai että aurinkoista syksya:) Tuli Nepalista kortti. Töissähän on kiva olla kun äijä (ja Kirsi) reissaa. btw täällä on tosi kirkasta kun pistää otsalamppua isommalle. Hienoja kuvia, hieno reissu, syö miestä, mitä muuta tässä vois sanoa. Keep on going... -jankke

[Ulla]

Hei! Onpas mukava seurata teidän matkatekoa. Ihania valokuvia. T: Ulla

[Santtu]

Moroo
Terve, Hyvät uudetvuodet! Hienolta näyttää :)

[Fidgetbuzz]

UK greetings
We went with you to meet the Bishnoi. Great blog - great pictures. How did the job interview go? All the very best for 2006 Roger

[Risto]

Terveiset teille!!!!
Tervehdys täältä Sipoosta! On hienoa olla mukananne reissussa blogeja lukiessa ja kuvia katsoessa. Fantastinen matka. Lycka till Chilen seikkailuille. terveisin Arja ja Risto