More from the Xmas holiday: Coromandel and New Years

Whangamata is a great little spot with a beach feeling to it. The town was chocca with teenagers there to party for New Years, but apparently it was unusually quit this year. I had a very active time with the Artz family. It mostly included one main activity: eating!! The activities around it were also food related: we went scuba diving to find crays to eat and we went fishing with Robbie, the neighbour so that we could EAT lots of nice fresh fish for lunch the next day.


The Artz clan with misc guests and loads of food

We managed to escape the dinner table a few times. One really nice trip was a walk we did up Wentworth Valley to the water fall. The one behind me on the photo was just a wee one we found when we took a wrong turn and followed a river up the forest a few hundred meters. Dave is practising his Gold prospecting skills in the riverbed. No luck this time unfortunately.



I had the chance to go diving twice during my visit. Dave has all the gear and is a keen cray hunter. It felt a bit shaky since I haven't been diving for three years. I had some minor issues with the mask but felt happy as Larry after a while. I actually used up as little air as Dave...not bad! The sneaky crays were simply too fast for me to catch, but Dave managed to snatch a few. They were unfortuntately too small (fortunate for them though:-) and we had to return them to the deep blue.







After the dive we did some fishing. We managed to catch over 20 big legal sized fish. None of the fish we caught could beat the bigass bugger we saw in the harbour the night after. Someone had caught a 65 kg grouper!!!!! Tht's like catching me on the rod :-)


Tarake, a yammie fish to eat!!



New Years by Lake Rotoiti

Nina and Phil had managed to drive up to the North Island with Phil's old boy racer car. Claudia succeeded in pulling Jonno away from his beloved gardening and they came down to Rotorua from Hamilton with Christian, a Chiliean guy they recently had met.

Jonno's parents have a really nice house by Lake Rotoiti with a small jetty, a good sized boat, which enables lots of water skiing. I had never tried it before but it was so much fun. I simply couldn't stop laughing once I got up. It was such a cool feeling to float on top of the water. I had a go with the wakeboard as well but was not as lucky as with the skiis. It was bloody hard, however I managed to get up a little bit. Maybe next time...

The weather changed rapidly from being sunny and lovely to having a thunder storm sweeping over us. We found the perfect spot for waiting out the rain: the natural hotpools by the side of the lake. It was such a cool feeling to sit in pouring rain in sulphur smelling hot pools. It was an area which you could only access with a boat, which made it even more awesome.

I can really understand why Jonno and Claudia spends as much time as they can by the lake.


The view from the balcony of the lake house


Phil




















It was awesome to see Claudia again! We all miss her down in Chch.


Pregnant or just fat from eating too much????


Jonno playing with fire


Back in Whangamata

Back to the relaxing place of Whangamata, Phil and Nina came by for a couple of days and we spent some awesome sunbathing time. It was lovely to have them there for a couple of nights. Dave's flat was completly full with people since Lauretta's sister and her boyfreind came passed one night. We all had a challenging game of Cranium!!








I think I have never been eating as much nice food during one holiday as during this one. Dave should certainly become a chef when he gets bored of the building business!!