Ohope Beach

Greetings from Ohope Beach!  The Bay of Plenty is stunning, beautiful beach (I think the book says it’s 13 kilometers long).  We’re camped at the Ohope Beach Top 10 holiday park, which is lovely.  The boys are in heaven because in addition to the normal fun (game room, trampolines, playground) it also has a beach volleyball court (aka sandbox) and a pool with 2 hydroslides. That’s just what’s at the holiday park, it’s also on the beach.  I love that New Zealand beaches rarely have any people on them, so it feels like you’ve got the whole place to yourself.  I posted on my Facebook status that our travel agenda was “pool and beach” which was perfect.  We never even got in the car.  For a road trip that’s covering a fair bit of ground days where you don’t drive at all a real treat.  I will confess that the swimming pool was freezing, but the boys braved it for a brief play.  Dan jumped in the ocean, which he declared to be at least 5 degrees warmer then the pool.  I got to take a walk along the beach in the afternoon, always a treat to get some solo exercise time in.  We finished the day off with Dan’s stellar pizza.   

Wainui Beach & Waiotahi Beach

Here's a cute snapshot from our brief trip to Wainui Beach in Gisbourne.  My friend Cathie said we had to go, so we took the detour, checked it out, but it was cold and very windy, so we packed it in quickly.  Lucky for us the drive over to the Bay of Plenty gave us more opportunity to hang out on the beach with some sunshine!  The boys used a milk container to help create this awesome sandcastle.  Love creative thinking with limited supplies.

Mahia and Gisbourne

I think it's important to share that not all days go according to plan.  On Wednesday night we stayed in a holiday park in Mahia Beach, which is between Napier and Gisbourne.  It was a total dive, and an expensive hole.  The family gave the holiday park a thumbs down and Ben's comment was "it needs a lot of repair."  So Thursday morning we were up bright and early and out of there.  We arrived in Gisbourne and found the swimming pool, something we seem to be making a regular routine of.  Unfortunately for us the pool was only an outdoor pool and one of New Zealand's sunniest spots was cold, grey and windy.  The boys lasted about 10 minutes in the tiny kid section before they were chattering their teeth and miserable.  Later we decided to treat the boys to a sausage roll for lunch and I asked the lady at the i site for the best spot, and when we arrived at the Kitchen they were all sold out.  It was not looking like this was our day at all!  We decided to head to the Gisbourne Public Library and had a delightful visit there.  Dan and I got to do some online research for our Thanksgiving part of our trip and the boys happily read books and played with toys.  The few other bumps in our day included a huge rain storm on our freshly hung laundry outside and extremely loud children in a communal kitchen.  But then again, we knew this trip wasn't going to be easy right?  

Ben at the beach in Gisbourne

Josh taking a nap in Dan's lap at the Gisbourne Library

Napier

We've had a lovely visit in Napier.  We got to stay at the Morgan/Lew Top 10 Holiday park (aka Darryl, Yolanda and Gemma's house).  Yolanda still thinks we're crazy to sleep in a tent and live for 2 1/2 months with so few clothes, but other then that...  I think Ben & Josh needed a few days of a central location and a buddy.  

We took Gemma with us to the National Aquarium, which is great, very worthy of a visit if you're in Napier.  Ben's a speed freak when it comes to museums and attractions, forever thinking something cooler is around the corner.  The moving walkway through the aquarium with the sharks and sting rays is a real treat.  I told Dan about the similar exhibit at Sea World in San Diego that was wall to wall people, whereas we rode the moving walk way at least a half dozen times and we were the only ones there.

We had a lovely play at the playground on the Marine Parade and some fun wave watching, house building with drift woods.  

We decided to splurge, thanks to my grandmother's luxury fund, and went out to lunch at The Mission Estate.  It was delightful, but then I think sitting out on a lawn eating gourmet food while drinking wine sounds like a nice way to pass the afternoon.  The first photo shows Ben & Gemma doing some math work at the table, so we promise we're doing a small amount of school work on this trip.  Josh eating ice cream, no explanation needed there.  The bottom photo is the three of them playing with paper airplanes.

Fabulous time...  sad to leave.  But, more ground to cover, more places to see.  Now if only I could find a few more holiday parks with free internet, free laundry, buddy for the boys, home cooked meal, great company...

Ben on Photo Booth

Ben makes me laugh, he's a pro with the Photo Booth program and has master many of the special features.

North Island Travels

Here's a map of where we've travelled so far in our north island adventures.  So, since we landed in on the north island we’ve gone from Wellington, north up toMasterton, with a side trip to Castle Point on the east coast (see post card I made on blog) and then up and over to Palmerston North and then over to the West Coast.  We spent 2 nights in Wanganui and then drove up to New Plymouth and around Mt Taranki.  We then drove over the oh-so-windy World’s Forgotten Highway (see other postcard on blog) to the small town Taumaruni.  From there we went to Taupo and then back down to Napier.  

Greetings from Taupo