Sunny afternoons :-)

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Hello everybody

We are now in the beautiful city of wellington. Since we last spoke, we have travelled from mt manguani (some spelling like that) through to Rotorua, Lake Taupo ( very nice), Napier (wine making place with lots of art deco - wonderful botanic garden) then across of Otaki (couple of hours from wellington) and then onto Wellington - where we are now.

Napier was lovely, it was sunny and the scenery much like that of tuscany with all the vineyards.
Otaki is a place you wouldn't think to stop in but it had this fantastic gorge which we went for a walk to, a massive car museum (where chris acted like a child in a sweet shop - he literally didn't know which direction to walk in first), and a beach were i was able to get my new 8 metre kite uip into the air, put my wet suit on a do a little body dragging in the sea. I am still practising with the board. We are off to south island on tuesday, where I am sure there will be more beaches for me to practise kite surfing. We stayed in a lovely campsite here, the cheapest so far, and we seemed to get on well with all the other permanent residents who live on the site. The guy who ran the place kept asking us if we were crazy wanting to stay on his site. We are now in a hostel in wellington, camping in what feels like the garden. All fun and games!

Today we purchased a roof rack in preparation for chris to get a surf board (which i am sure he will share with me - after i have knocked him over the head and he has lost consciouness, ho ho ho.)

Lots of love

Helena and Chris

PS Neighbours - only catch it when the campsite has a telly - so far, Paul's daughter Elle is on the scene causing mischief. the timmons are living in a trailer park on a bus, Carmella is trying to win Connor back (as he is going out with Serena) by only lending him the money for his baby daughters operation if he spends time with her! Susan is engaged but the geezer has just had a heart attack...

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Comments

[Charlotte]

Hi, Sounds like you are both having an excellent time, the kite boarding and imminent surfing sound great. I'm really liking the neighbours installments! There was honestly no sarcasm there, I'm a huge fan. Take care, Charlotte xxx

[Ben]

Hello at last!!!
WOW, you guys are realy living it up, I did wonder how long the bikes would last but by the sound of things you are getting enough excercise as it is! There are lots of things I want to tell you about from back here and I expect it is visa versa, but, I'll have to curb my excitment for you. Sorry it has taken me so long to read your blog but Al was a bit slow on produing a hard copy afer my e-mail account kept deleting his e-mails, never mind, got it now and I'm quite literally green with envy. I'll let Louisa read it tonight when she gets home. Helena: Don't listen to all those kiljoys, do as much of the dangerous stuff as you like, just don't die! Chris: Surfs up dude! Enjoy the surfing, it's harder than it looks ;) We're off snowboarding in Jan/Feb so we'll have a couple of holiday snaps to show you as well. Take care of yourselves. Ben and Lou (she's not here at the mo but I'm sure she will write you a mesage herself later :)