A couple of days after Christmas and the tourists and the Aucklanders arrive en masse for their holidays. The roads are getting busier and at the boat ramp yesterday we counted about 40 trailers compared to a usual eight or ten.
There are more cars parked on the grass overlooking the beachfront and some people are swimming, it’s still a bit cold for us though.
We were going to Kerikeri for some shopping and combined it with a visit to the Manginangina Scenic Reserve where the
These trees are magnificent and grow to a huge width and some of the walkways to the trees have been completed to the same width as the trees trunk so that you can fully appreciate the size of the Kauri Tree. They have had to protect them from loggers, one of 
Anyway we wandered around this area for a while and then continued our drive through the forest on un-metalled roads and then came across
We had a great lunch in a little café called “Posh Nosh” that we have been to before and then went to the bank where we changed some Hong Kong Dollars into New Zealand Dollars, we won’t be needing them now as we are not stopping in Hong Kong on the way back, but the rate is not good.
We did some food shopping at New World Supermarket for the BBQ we are planning for New Years Day and then headed back to Taipa. Our lunch was so good and filling our need for an evening dinner of fish (minus chips I may add) was deemed not to be necessary.
We spent about thirty minutes in the Spa overlooking the bay with the sun beating down and it was a pleasant way to relax.
We are expecting the estate agents to visit tomorrow with perhaps somebody who is interested in the house but we shall see if they come. We have decided to eat out on New Years Eve at the Galley Restaurant in Mangonui and we think that Robin and
There was an old English film on TV called Mrs Brown which was quite interesting and we watched most of that before retiring to bed.
