I've been taking every chance I get to enjoy the end of Summer weather here.
Last month, Lyndsay, her friend Tarsha and I had a girls weekend to Auckland planned to see the one, the only ROXETTE perform!
Unfortunately, one of the performers got ill on the zillion-hour flight from Sweden to New Zealand, so they cancelled their show. Boo! But as consolation we were offered 2-for-1 tickets to an outdoor Winery Concert Fest, with some classic Kiwi bands performing.
Unfortunately, one of the performers got ill on the zillion-hour flight from Sweden to New Zealand, so they cancelled their show. Boo! But as consolation we were offered 2-for-1 tickets to an outdoor Winery Concert Fest, with some classic Kiwi bands performing.
What a beautiful afternoon it was at Villa Maria Winery.
I invited my newly-settled-in-Auckland mate Nick (yes, he was my Adventure Tourguide in the South Island!) to join us girls. What a nice cruisey time with good mates :)
The next weekend was a first time feat for me and my bootcamp buddy Kimberly- we ran/biked our first ever duathlon! We ran 3.5km then biked 10 km then ran another 1.5km--- it was tough! But we did it!
Here we are at the finish.
We also got to meet a real Kiwi Gold Medal Olympian!
Sarah Ulmer, who won the Gold Medal and set a World Record in the 3000m cycling event at the 2004 Athens Games, was on hand to promote the REAL Womens Race Series. All the competitors in the our race were women! Yeah Girl Power!
Here's Kimberly and I with Sarah after the race. She was such a nice, friendly, down-to-earth woman!
The next weekend it was time to get back to nature! Rod and I went on an overnight camping trip to Lake Tawawera, which is at the base of Mount Tarawera, the volcano responsible for NZ's largest historic eruption back in 1886.
Mount Tarawera in the distance
Tawawera means "burnt spear", and was named by a visiting hunter who left his bird spears in a hut and on returning the following season found that the spears and the hut had been burned down completely. D'oh!
The stunning Lake Tarawera
Which flows into the Tarawera River....
And then the river goes underground them POPS out as the Tarawera Falls!
35 meters high and quite spectacular.
There's a portion of the Tarawera River before the falls that actually is quite calm, and safe for swimming. We took a dip here. Refreshing!
Here's our campsite.
Pretty sunset!
So on our walk back from the Falls, I *SWEAR* I saw something hopping across the path in front of us. I yelped "Kangaroooo????" Rod informed me no, not kangaroo, but possibly a wallaby!
(No, I didn't take this picture, it's borrowed from http://kids.britannica.com just to show you how FREEKING CUTE wallabies are!)
So, I was excited about my possible wallaby-spotting earlier in the day. We headed out for a twilight walk and I *SWEAR* I saw another! This time I tried to take a picture.... yes.... it's kind of dark, but if you look closely, you may be able to see its outline!)
This Wallaby sighting got me very VERY excited about my hopeful plans to go to Australia later this year!
So it was a nice day/night at Lake Tawera walking and camping and wallaby sighting.
The next day we followed the Tarawera River (this time by car) to Hamurana Springs, the North Island's deepest source of fresh water. It produces 4 million(!) litres of water per hour!
It was a beautiful sunny day with neat reflective colors on the water.
We followed the river some more and stopped at Okere Falls, a fairly short but exciting rapid that is frequented by kayakers and rafters.
The last stop for us was the river's last stop... here at Maketu beach... as the water poured into the Bay of Plenty.
Fun February times for sure!
Cheers 'til next blog (full of March Adventures)!
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