We are now back in the UK and the weather is lovely and sunny. It’s a little chilly though and shorts and t-shirts are still in my backpack (yes I still haven’t unpacked yet!)

We didn’t get our flight upgrade so we were cram packed in economy right behind the bulkhead seats with all the screaming kids. But for some reason I was so chilled out none of this bothered me. I managed to sleep well and watched a few movies.

Here are some film reviews, bearing in mind that long haul flights are not the best place to review films.

Slumdog Millionaire

This is about a kid who won millionaire and had to justify how he knew all the answers by going through his life history.

Well this has to be the boringest movie I have ever tried to watch. I managed to sit through 10 mins of it when I got bored and switched to something else.

Because of the good reviews I thought I should attempt another 10 mins. Got bored switched to another movie.

Then I even went back for more torture by trying another 10 mins, and finally gave up in disgust.

Mike gave up after the first 5 minutes.

Australia

This film is highly recommended if you are an insomniac. I had the best flight sleep ever as I passed out watching this boring load of crap.

Mike managed to watch the whole thing but also said it was boring and not worth me trying to watch the finish of it.

Marley and Me

Starring Jennifer Aniston and that guy from Armageddon, and some ugly mongrel mutt.

Its about Jennifer and that guy from Armageddon getting married and having this horrible mutt that wont behave. It was more drama than comedy and that guy from Armageddon tried very hard to make it into a soppy movie, but his attempts were almost laughable.

I could not get attached to this dog and if he were mine I would have dumped him on the side of the road years ago, so when he died it was like “get over it you guys, this isn’t even sad”.

Anyway, a rubbish movie in my opinion and not even funny.

Run Fatboy Run

Starring that guy from Spaced and Phoebes russian ex-boyfriend from Friends.

This was about that guy from Spaced leaving his gorgeous bride at the alter, then trying to win her back but she had already moved on with Phoebes russian ex-boyfriend from Friends (who by the way had a really fit bod!)

It was watchable and that’s all I have to say!

We left Whatuwhiwhi and headed for Kaitaia for supplies. We are doing a Tapas dish each tonight (limit of $5 per dish).

We are staying at Ahipara, right on 90 mile beach in a self contained (luxury) apartment for just $180 for the four of us.

We went for a swim and boogie board followed by quad biking along 90 mile beach.

Lynda driving:

Chrissie driving:

And Mike driving:

And the girls on their boogie boards:

Tomorrow we will post photos of Lynda and Chrissie doing their tandem skydive.

Matauri Bay was soooo beautiful we decided to spend the morning there. We went for a snorkel and the water was so clear. We saw loads of big fish and wished we had our rods with us.

This was the beach we camped at Matauri Bay.

We continued on our road trip to Whatawhiwhi, where we found another campsite on the beach. We blew up our inflatable kayak and Lynda and Chrissie hired some kayaks, and we went for a paddle, stopping at some bays for a swim and snorkel.

Another perfect and beautiful spot and I think they are right about “The Winterless Far North”

Here is the beach we stayed at in Whatuwhiwhi

Just a short drive today. We stopped in Russell for a coffee, caught the car ferry, stopped in Pahia for a quick look then stopped around 2pm at a Matauri Bay, which is a gorgeous spot right on the beach. In fact there are two beaches. We just spent the afternoon doing some swimming and boogie boarding and generally just relaxing. Lynda and Chrissie booked a cabin and me and Mike tented.

The first beach

And the other beach:

We vacated our lovely free accommodation in Mangawhai Heads and continued our road trip north. We stopped at a beach for a sand castle competition. We all had 5 minutes to create our works of art for Mike to judge.

Here are the photos and the results:

A Sand Jandal – by Lynda

Sand and Stuff Castle – by Jo

A Paua Shell – by Chrissie

Lynda won first prize for originality, Jo won first prize for prettiness and Chrissie won first prize for water draining efficiency (or something like that!)

We left our works of art behind and headed off down a rugged dirt track to visit a cave.

We then stopped and looked at a big waterfall

Then we headed off to find some beachside accommodation and found a gorgeous spot right on the beach. It looked a little like rain so we decided to take a cabin. Once checked in a lot of screaming happened as it was full of spiders! We got some spray and sprayed the hell out of it but had a rather restless night worrying about spiders.

Unfortunately no one thought to take photos of the bay.

We departed Hamilton at today, hungover as hell cos Lynda insisted on opening the champagne last night when we already had a tummy full of beer and wine!

We fastracked it through Auckland, over the harbour bridge, turned off at Takapuna and followed the East Coast Bays Road. We stopped at a cafe in Mairangi Bay for a gorgeous breakfast, and soooo cheap. $10 got us 2 flat whites and a bacon and egg sandwich.

We stopped at Orewa and took some photos of kite surfers. One guy wanted us to get some photos of him airborne for a French magazine.

On the road again we did a diversion to the Puhoi pub for a beer.

Our next stop was Sandspit where I caught my first fish when I was only 5 years old. (Back when I was 5 years old my Dad put my line in the water for me and said if I feel a tug to pull it in. So I felt a tug, pulled my line in, and sure enough there was a fish on the end. )

This is the spot I caught my first fish!

Mike, sister Lynda and Chrissy in a silly photo where I caught my first fish!

We then made our way towards Mangawhai heads and got lost on a dirty gravel road, but eventually came out the end.

We are staying at a friend of Lyndas place and it is very nice and comfy.

We had pasta and salad for dinner, accompanied by many beers.

The other weekend we visited Jeff and Kelly on Waiheke Island for some sun, sea and scallops. Unfortunately, while the rest of NZ experienced temperatures reaching almost 40 degrees, we struggled to reach 20 degrees on the nonconformist Waiheke Island.

But we had scallops!

Jeff went diving every day and brought us back a feast of fresh scallops.

Here’s Mike cooking them up on the barbie in some garlic butter. They were the most delicious things ever! And we ate orange bit, which for some insane reason they remove in the UK. It is the tastiest bit!

Apart from scoffing scallops we did the sculpture walk. This is where local artists take the piss by discarding a scrap piece of corrugated iron (that clearly they have no further use for) on the island, tell the council it is “art” and all the pretentious Auckland wankers “ooh” and “aah” about how it is his best work yet! And the artist pockets $30,000 from the council and laughs his head off all the way to the bank.

Seriously, the council paid $30,000 for this piece of “art”.

These little fellas were quite cute:

A snake full of pine cones:

That’s Dave by the way!

We had our 3rd Christmas day on the 20th Dec and it was a rather large affair.

There were 18 adults, 5 children and 3 dogs. All these people and still half my brothers and sisters were missing, half my nephews and nieces were missing and half the dogs were missing!

Here is a link to the photos.

Christmas Photos

It is NZ tradition to find your Christmas tree on the side of the road. So I took Mike out to show him how its done.

First, find a tree to steal

This one is a bit scrawny

This one looks just right.

Get a saw and start cutting

Bundle the evidence up in a tarp

Wrap it up so it’s well hidden

Tie it up good

Carry it to your car

Stick it on top

No one will see it there