Easter Trup

Most of April was spent being a bit manic at work, so we were both pretty relieved when Easter came around and we were treated to four days work-free touring in Carrie north of Auckland.

We haven't spent much time in the Far North, so it was great to explore the Tutukaka Coast for the first time - a beautiful stretch of coastline not far from Whangarei.

Despite having experienced the tail-end of another cyclone in Auckland on the Thursday, we set off that evening with our fingers crossed that the weekend wouldn't be a wash out. It worked as we were treated to blue skies (with just a few showers to keep us on our toes - it is autumn after all!).

Rugged coastline

View out to the Poor Knights Islands - home of some
of the best diving in the world, apparently

Ahhh, gorgeous NZ scenery

Gentle waves

Chilling

Having spent a couple of nights at larger campsites in the area we stumbled across a gem of a site. Owned by a local farmer, the farm was perched on cliffs overlooking two beautiful beaches. Each site has a spectacular view and you felt like you had it all to yourself! We enjoyed a couple of days of swimming, reading, sunbathing and eating. Heaven!

Not a bad view from the van!

Our home for two nights

One of the site's beaches

Easter Sunday lunch

Matt testing out the rope swing during
one of the wetter parts of the weekend!

Sun poking through clouds

Autumn colours

Pohutukawa tree - our favourite

Feeling refreshed after so much relaxation we were ready for three days of work before another bank holiday weekend!

Over-indulgence and temperance

Post ironman, Matt and I were in need of a bit of relaxation. Luckily we had anticipated this beforehand and so had booked ourselves into a beer festival in Auckland with fellow poms and beer connoisseurs Jody and Hannah. The excitement had mounted somewhat over the work email in anticipation of festival day with plenty of banter regarding our costume choice (despite it not actually being officially fancy dress, for some reason going dressed up was essential). After much deliberation we settled on going as air crew (don't ask why). Hannah led the team as Captain Bailey, Jody appeared as Air Traffic Controller Wells, I dished out peanuts as Stewardess Broad and Matt had a  last minute promotion from Baggage Handler Cope to Trainee Ground Crew.

Costumes and props prepared we headed down to the waterfront in gale force winds (thanks to a south pacific cyclone my perfect stewardess hair lasted minutes). As you can see, a great time was had by all:

Boozy Jet (complete with name badges)

Peanuts anyone?

Managed to crop Jody's crotch out this time

Come in Captain Bailey, come in..?

There she goes!

Time to head home methinks

The beer festival weekend, and another undocumented drinking weekend later, we all felt we needed a bit of time off the beers. So in late March we set off down to Raglan for a couple of days and managed to not touch a drop of booze between us! Instead, the boys surfed, the ladies ran and we all drank lots of fizzy drink and caffeine! Fun times:

Surfer dudes

Best cafe in NZ (so says Hannah)

Bridal Veil Falls

Team Temperance

It really does look like a bride's veil!