Papamoa Beach Jumping Pillow

Jumping pillows are too much fun!  Bigger and better then a trampoline.  As you can see in these photos we all took part in the jumping fun.  Behind Dan you can see Norie and our tent, so we didn't have to go far to enjoy the two jumping pillows at the Papamoa Beach Holiday park.

Hot Water Beach

Hot Water Beach sounded like a perfect place for us to visit.  Two hours before and after low tide you can dig a hole in the sand and create an individual hot tub on the beach with the natural hot springs in the beach.  Unfortunately we didn’t time our visit to the beach with the low tide.  But that being said we still enjoyed a lovely visit, some good sand castle building and an exploration of the cave at the end of the beach.  The surf was up and a number of surfers were out enjoying the big waves.  I could sit in my lawn chair under our red and white stripped umbrella for hours and just be.  But the kids were soaking wet and we had more places to explore, so we packed up the van and headed north… next time we’ll get the tide right.

Pauanui

This is where we spent 4 nights in a holiday house on the Coromandel.  Pauanui is a lovely little beach side town with a stunning beach, which lucky for us, was just out our back door.  We happened to be right next to the airstrip, which was surprisingly busy, guess folks must fly down to their beach houses from Auckland?  Can you see in the photo on the bottom left that Josh has his sand shovel tucked into his shirt?  Armed and dangerous sand castle building machine....

Thanksgiving

This is my 6^th Thanksgiving in New Zealand and I still think it’s a bit odd to celebrate an American holiday in New Zealand.  Thankfully this year we had Dan’s mom, Bertie, with us to help celebrate.  We rented a holiday house in the town of Paunanui on the Coromandel Peninsula and it was a very relaxed celebration.  Dan was able to find a frozen turkey breast roast in Auckland.  We tried to stick to the traditional menu, but I’ll admit we didn’t go the whole nine yards.  We had roasted potatoes, kumara and pumpkin, garlic bread, salad, turkey with cranberry stuffing and gravy.  We toasted the meal with our last bottle of Rippon Pinot Noir from Wanaka.  We decided to just have Hokey Pokey ice cream for dessert, which I know is a bit of a crime since Thanksgiving is really about the pies.  What I love about having a destination getaway holiday, when no one else is celebrating with you, is that you can have a relaxed stroll down the beach or go visit the local library and read your children some books, because the Kiwis think it’s just a normal Thursday.   My next favorite bit is that fact that I made my divine left over Thanksgiving sandwich and then ate it the next day under an umbrella while sitting at the beach.

Auckland Museum

We picked up Dan's mom at the Auckland Airport yesterday and after a small issue with the campervan (a small diesel leak that needs to be repaired) were off tooling around Auckland city in our rented minivan.  We went to the Auckland Museum because I had taken the boys last year and Ben declared that it was his favorite museum in the whole galaxy.  The boys loved the volcano exhibit and the weird and wacky area.

Matheson Bay

Here are a few photos from our lovely stay at our friend Scott's family bach in Matheson Bay.  We pitched our tent on the deck, because one of the bedrooms was inside and the other one was outside, so we "camped" at the bach.  I love that the bach had the classic Kiwi feel to it, toilet out in the backyard, small cozy rooms cluttered with dusty books and dated magazines, cans and supplies on the shelves (some of them of them rather old, i.e. the Marmite jar the expired in 2001).  But the bach was a 5 minute walk to the beach with a fabulous ocean view in a quiet little area.  For traveling fools like ourselves, we really enjoyed having a base spot for a few days while we explored the Warkworth area.  The photos of Dan and the beer are from his tasting kit from the Sawmill Brewery in Leigh.  I liked that when I told the owner that since I keep dragging the family to wineries that I should let Dan take in a brewery and she replied, "yeah I think about 10 wineries to 1 brewery should be about the ratio."  While in Matheson Bay we went to the beach, the Farmer's Market, the Warkworth Museum, the public library, a few small walks...  I read an entire book...  Perfect!

Brick Bay Wines and Sculpture Tour

I keep dragging the family to different wineries through out New Zealand, but today we stumbled upon a real gem.  Brick Bay Wines and Sculpture Trail calls itself “art & wine entwined” and in addition to the super modern glass house tasting room suspended over a small pond there’s a 2 kilometer sculpture trail.  The trail leads past ponds, through forests and up and down several sets of stairs.  Some sculptures are hidden in the natural environment, while others stand proudly on the side of the hill. Ben is fairly keen on sculptures and really enjoyed the treasure hunt experience through the amazing gardens, constantly checking his map to see where we were on the path.  Dan and Josh stayed behind and Dan took a glass of their red wine to the sand box next to the playground. When we finished the sculpture tour I did a wine tasting and had a lovely chat with the woman working, as we happened to be the only people there at the time.  It was another fabulous winery experience, if you are every outside of Warkworth I would definitely say go check it out.  They say that the sculptures change fairly often (as they are all for sale), so it would be something you could go back and revisit more then once.