Xmas - Trial by Water

The weather in the in the weeks running up to Xmas, according to the Metservice anyway, was the best NZ had experienced in about 50years. Unfortunately this fine spell ended with the arrival of a subtropical depression bringing heavy rain and, as usual, coincided with our annual Xmas camping trip. In between the rain we did manage to take a few photo’s as you can see here.

We were away for a week and stayed at Waitomo, Auckland and Rotorua. As with last year we used Waitomo as a base to explore the local countryside. The highlight of this particular leg of the journey was a day at the Beach in the quaint little coastal town of Kawhia. It was a splendid warm day there and we would have loved to have a swim in the sea, but the un-patrolled beach and dangerous rips meant that paddling was the way to go.

We also visited the Pureora Forest Park where we did a short bush walk, which culminated in climbing a 12m observation tower, which allowed us views of the rather lovely forest canopy.

I can’t say the Auckland or Rotorua legs of the journey were up to much on a number of levels, hence the lack of pictures.

Hopefully the tent will be dried out by next Xmas, though, money permitting, we may head of overseas with Argentina or Vietnam being the favoured options.