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Published: March 8th 2007
We woke up, well-rested for our last day with Mom and Gary. The weather was a little over-cast, but not too bad (at this point in our day.) After breakfast we headed down to the water. We had booked ourselves on a sailboat trip on the lake. The "Barbarry" is a 42 foot sailboat that was built in 1926. Our Skipper was great and had lots of interesting info about the lake and surrounding area. We were sailing along enjoying the day when we started to notice some weather that was moving across the lake. It was quite windy, so we got to put up the sails and anyone on the trip was allowed to help with the sails or steering of the ship. We made it to the Maori Rock Carvings just before the weather hit. The Carvings, which are the main reason for doing the trip, were really awesome. They are carved into the rock right on the edge of the lake. The land is private, so the only way to reach and see the carvings is by boat. There are several different carvings and there's a story behind all of them. The lizarrd is the guardian of
all the other carvings. They are all hand-carved by the Maori of the area and it was really impressive. We left just in time for the rain to start coming down. First our skpper just went down below and handed out rain gear to everyone because it wasn't too bad. But after about 15 min it was coming down HARD and windy, so he sent us all down below-which was kinda cool. He said it was the first time all summer he actually had to sent people below because the rain was so hard. We had coffee, tea and biscuits down there- perfect to warm up with. We spent about 45 min heading back and then the rain stopped and we could spend the last 15 min or so back on deck again.
After the boat trip we headed to the "Huka Prawn Park" for lunch. It is how it sounds. They farm millions of prawn here every year and there are all kinds of prawn-like activities and tours to do. We decided to head straight for the restaurant which serves up these huge yummy prawns almost anyway you can imagine. We all tried something a little different. (Check
back for photos, I need to get them from Mom's camera.) Good thing we did the boat trip in the morning because it POURED all afternoon. SO after lunch we went to the Manuka Honey Centre where they sell EVERYTHING honey and you can see active hives. The honey ice cream and wines/liquers were some of our favorites, plus all kinds of lip and skin products. After a quick stop for some groceries, it was time to go our seperate ways...Mom and Gary off to Napier and beyond for wine tours and other such fun things. And Dennis and I....well back to work. We hope they have a great time on the rest of their trip. We'll post more soon about their last weekend in Auckland before returning back to Canada.
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Steve-O
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Gibby????
Nice photos, those carvings look crazy!!! I can't wait to see some more beach photos. Those sunset photos are amazing as well. Calgary is finally starting to warm up, the Flames are holding in at 8th place but Colorado is catching up fast. Rick is still old and I'm still crazy!!!! Just one question.....? Where is this new nickname "Gibby" coming from? Miss ya ~steve