Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Quiet Christmas week


The New Zealand Christmas Tree - Pohutakawa in bloom in our front yard

It never really feels like Christmas in the southern hemisphere.As a result we never really do very much in the way of celebration. This year was no exception to this rule. We were invited over for a bbq with some friends on Christmas Day, and the one traditional thing we did was eat too much of the yummy food.

The rest of the Christmas week we have been trying to catch up on lots of chores and finish projects at home. We have made some progress in the garden by pulling out the weeds that were taking over one side of our house. We also finished off several wood working projects with the final sanding, staining and waxing of the wood.


Helen's cook book stand (pictures to follow)

It wasn't all work - we did get out mountain biking and we did a lot of relaxing around the house - recovering from our exertions.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Biking with Dan and Bec at Rotorua and Taupo

Dan came to visit from Canberra and was keen to do some mountain biking at some of the well known biking mecca's on the north island. So we picked him up from the airport and headed straight up to Taupo. We warmed up on the W2K track around the edge of Lake Taupo, with awesome views across the lake. Although the volcanoes were hiding in the clouds.

On Sunday we headed up to Rotorua. The weather was warm and it threatened to rain, but we only got a few spots. We did a big loop around the forest, riding all of Aaron's favourite tracks. This took about 4 and a half hours! After which Helen was stuffed. However, Dan was keen to get some photos in the forest, so Aaron, Dan and Bec headed back in for a couple of photo shoots with Dan's new SLR camera. There are no decent photos of Dan as he rode to fast and was the only one who could really work the camera correctly!


Drop in on Rollercoaster


Playing on a jump on the Challenge Track

On Monday we did a short loop around the Wairakei bike park at Taupo and then headed back to Wellington, through some rather fierce rain storms. The weather had been very kind to us while we were riding, we had timed it all perfectly!


Helen in Wairakei Forest Park