The silly season was upon faster than any other year. We managed to send of xmas gifts to Sweden and England on time, so now we can relax for another year.
In true Swedish xmas fashion, Anna, Veronika and Sara and I made some very delicious pepparkakor (gingerbread biscuits) and lussekatter (saffron buns). We played slimy Swedish xmas songs and drank glogg (gluhwein - German version, not as good of course).
Baked with love and to the sound of Carola.
Veronika dressed up for the occasion. The horns were actually playing a xmas tune as well.
Anna - eager to taste the lussekatts dough.
This is a short walking track around a very thermally active area. Someone without any class named the place "Crates of the Moon". I am sure the Maoris had some much more suitable name for it back in the days.
Chris, John and Charlie in the hot sweltering sun.
The Xmas days were spent with Charlie's family friends in Hatfield's beach, north of Auckland. They have a gorgeous house with sea views and we mostly ate nice food and drank lots of beer and wine. The essential components of a xmas. I guess Charlie and I ate and drank in quantities to compensate for not celebrating anything at all the year before on Stewart Island.
We ended up in Napier around New Years and almost passed out in the heat in our settlers' cottage located by the Lake Tutira. It was a very picturesque place where John had the chance to practise his fishing skills.
The beautiful Rimu wood was used throughout the cottage. It was a great spot from which we visited a vineyard, the beach and the art deco town. In 1931, Napier was levelled by an earthquake, killing 256 people. The town centre was destroyed and rebuilt in the popular art deco style of the time. 
The last stop of the holiday was in Wellingon, where we had a chance to catch up with Caspar and Nadeine, who finally have come back from Aussie. We visited Te Papa, Wellington's famous museum, where they stored the colossal squid. In February 2007, the crew of a fishing boat near Antarctica get the surprise of their lives when they haul up a huge colossal squid on the end of a long line.
The squid weighed 495 kg and measured over 4 meters. I don't think I would like to meet one of those on my diving trips.
Baked with love and to the sound of Carola.
Veronika dressed up for the occasion. The horns were actually playing a xmas tune as well.
Anna - eager to taste the lussekatts dough.Charlie's parents arrived in mid December for a 2.5 months holiday and we met up with them on the North Island.
They were in New Zealand over 16 years ago and it was interesting to hear how much this place has changed since then. They told us that Queenstown had only one or two restaurants. It is the big pumping tourism mecca now with probably up to 100 places to eat!! Maybe Peter Jackon and Lord of the Rings are to blame for some of it?
We started off the holiday with a relaxing time in stinky Rotorua. It is a place with lovely hotpools, cool mountain biking and beautiful lakes.
Since I wouldn't let Charlie bring our mountain bikes on the plane, we rented a couple for a few hours. I managed to bang the handle bar into a tree (trees are big there and the handle bars were wide :-) and the result was a MASSIVE bruise on my arm. I can't believe I never took any good photo of it. Since we had a couple of hours left on the rental bikes, Charlie asked me to suck it up and bike it off!!
This is a short walking track around a very thermally active area. Someone without any class named the place "Crates of the Moon". I am sure the Maoris had some much more suitable name for it back in the days.
Chris, John and Charlie in the hot sweltering sun.
The Xmas days were spent with Charlie's family friends in Hatfield's beach, north of Auckland. They have a gorgeous house with sea views and we mostly ate nice food and drank lots of beer and wine. The essential components of a xmas. I guess Charlie and I ate and drank in quantities to compensate for not celebrating anything at all the year before on Stewart Island.I have heard lots about Goat Island Marine reserve on the North Island and wanted to dive there for a long time. In the end, the diving company convinced us to go beyond the marine reserve to the Mokohinau Islands, maybe to get more money out of us. I think we were a bit disappointed, probably since the previous 12 dives we did were along Great Barrier Island and it is very hard to beat that experience. The dive boat was full of pro-divers with one purpose: kill everything they could eat! Knifes, harpoons, nets and you-name-it, they were geared up to combat anything. A lot of guys returned with big fish, lobsters and a bucket of scallops. What's wrong with just looking?
We ended up in Napier around New Years and almost passed out in the heat in our settlers' cottage located by the Lake Tutira. It was a very picturesque place where John had the chance to practise his fishing skills.
The beautiful Rimu wood was used throughout the cottage. It was a great spot from which we visited a vineyard, the beach and the art deco town. In 1931, Napier was levelled by an earthquake, killing 256 people. The town centre was destroyed and rebuilt in the popular art deco style of the time. 
The last stop of the holiday was in Wellingon, where we had a chance to catch up with Caspar and Nadeine, who finally have come back from Aussie. We visited Te Papa, Wellington's famous museum, where they stored the colossal squid. In February 2007, the crew of a fishing boat near Antarctica get the surprise of their lives when they haul up a huge colossal squid on the end of a long line.
The squid weighed 495 kg and measured over 4 meters. I don't think I would like to meet one of those on my diving trips.
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