A new year escape

Now that Annalie is back in NZ, we've decided to head off for a short break to the South Island to do some silly stuff ;-)

So we flew back to Queenstown. Our first night, however, has been spent in Cromwell, less than an hour from Qtown. Annalie bought Ian a motorbike tour which included a night's accommodation, so here we are.

But chilling by Lake Dunstan is an equally enjoyable way to start the holiday...

Another view of home

Here's some more views from Ian's recent trek to the top of the hill opposite our house.

In this photo, the field in the bottom left is Tawatawa, one of our local dog walking reserves just two minutes' walk from our house. You can see a track cut into the hill just above it. That's our short track for walking Maddy.

You can just about make out the harbour entrance in the distance of this photo. That's how high up this hill is!

This is looking out over our house, the reserve, Owhiro Bay, Island Bay and numerous other suburbs, up towards the harbour. You can even see Somes Island (the old quarantine base) in the middle of the harbour.

Now here's one from a little bike ride up the coast with Scott. Some of you may recognise Kapiti Island. This was taken from the top of Paekakariki Hill Road.

Riding for charidee mate

It's quite an impressive sight when you see hundreds of motorbikes cruising down the road in one big sea of rumble and grumble. And it's quite something to be part of that too. This Sunday we joined our friend Scott to take part in the Salvation Army Christmas Toy Ride, to raise money and collect toys for underprivileged kids.

The start of the ride was in Mana, just up State Highway 1, where hundreds of bikes filled the car park about to set off on one of the largest co-ordinated rides in the country.

With the help of the local constabulary, and some willing marshall volunteers, we carved our merry way back down towards Wellington in one big convoy, with slip roads closed off to allow us a smooth path. And the car drivers were very cordial about the whole thing! In the UK or US we'd probably have had a chorus of tooting horns expressing their annoyance at having their journey interrupted. But here we were welcomed with lots of waves and even some spectators throughout Mana and Paremata!

When we got into Wellington, we parked under the sails on Queens Wharf to grab a drink and another saussie sizzle :) Here's a picture of just a few of the bikes. Annalie's is the one on the far right towards the back. Obviously she didn't want anyone else getting too close considering the distance between her bike and the rest of them ;)