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Summer is on her way out! The days are becoming fractionally shorter with every passing day and the mornings and evenings have a touch of a chill on them. Our recently acquired caravan has allowed us to do a bit of weekending away and we have found some more really beautiful spots around the North Island. Admittedly, we have been quite fortunate with the weather for the most part - (the few days in the pouring rain at New Plymouth a couple of months ago, we choose to disregard!) and these pictures should give you a good idea of how really beautiful the scenery is here.
Late afternoon down at the beach and there are children splashing about in the river and paddling on 'boats' made from some of the driftwood that is always around on these beaches.
The holiday park at Opunake Beach is right on the shoreline - there are walks in all directions and the beach is safe for swimming - with lifeguards on duty in the summer. We watched some of the aforementioned lifeguards running through their training drills on Sunday morning, culminating in rubber ducky race-out-and-rescue missions which saw the blow-up boats leaping dramatically into the air as they crashed into the waves at speed to rescue colleagues who had minutes before leaped spectacularly from the boats and were by then flailing about in the surf and looking like they were about to drown!
When it's really hot and humid at the coast the sun is extremely fierce - maybe we are just getting on a bit, but without a good sunblock and spectacular hat, you are doomed to a miserable few days with a touch of sunstroke at the very least. Here Rudolph and Jo are waiting for Adelle to take a foofy slide ride over the river.
Finding folks with similar interests is a big advantage to happy weekend caravaning trips - Wilma and Rudolph have a very flash campervan and since they hail originally from the town almost next door to ours, we had something to talk about while we got to know one another! It turns out we have loads in common, not least of which an enjoyment of tramping about on the trails beside the sea and late night cards and liqueurs in a part of New Zealand we hadn't yet visited. Wilma is also a keen photographer and so we have made lots of time for taking photographs and documenting our adventures here.
When folks actually own more than one tripod for their cameras and forget them back at the holiday park on EVERY occasion, you have to resort to the balancing-camera-on-hankerchief-to-protect-it-from-the-rock trick in order to take group shots with the 'balancer' included in the picture! It became almost a ritual - we all stood about while Rudolph got the camera and hankerchief all nicely organised, then everyone watches him half-run, half-totter (depending on the terrain) to join the group whilst counting back from 10 - (like an Appollo mission lift-off) and then whipping off the baseball cap just in time to smile sheepishly at the camera! You would think that one of these would be enough, but no.... we must have done at least five of them! When I get hold of one of these pictures, I shall post it up here for you to see!
No trick photography here - this little guy really did sit on Jo's hand and take the bread bit by bit - we had coaxed a whole lot of these little LBJ's the day before with tidbits of bread, bringing them closer and closer to us. This little chappie appears to be really young (and probably too dumb to be scared) - but we thought it was something quite special!
I have had a few days in which I can really relate to this old duck! and makes me think of the Introduction to one of the 'home organising' books I read years ago in which the main quote was "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom" and indeed it is! Dis al!
.JPG)
Summer is on her way out! The days are becoming fractionally shorter with every passing day and the mornings and evenings have a touch of a chill on them. Our recently acquired caravan has allowed us to do a bit of weekending away and we have found some more really beautiful spots around the North Island. Admittedly, we have been quite fortunate with the weather for the most part - (the few days in the pouring rain at New Plymouth a couple of months ago, we choose to disregard!) and these pictures should give you a good idea of how really beautiful the scenery is here.
Late afternoon down at the beach and there are children splashing about in the river and paddling on 'boats' made from some of the driftwood that is always around on these beaches.
The holiday park at Opunake Beach is right on the shoreline - there are walks in all directions and the beach is safe for swimming - with lifeguards on duty in the summer. We watched some of the aforementioned lifeguards running through their training drills on Sunday morning, culminating in rubber ducky race-out-and-rescue missions which saw the blow-up boats leaping dramatically into the air as they crashed into the waves at speed to rescue colleagues who had minutes before leaped spectacularly from the boats and were by then flailing about in the surf and looking like they were about to drown!
When it's really hot and humid at the coast the sun is extremely fierce - maybe we are just getting on a bit, but without a good sunblock and spectacular hat, you are doomed to a miserable few days with a touch of sunstroke at the very least. Here Rudolph and Jo are waiting for Adelle to take a foofy slide ride over the river.
Finding folks with similar interests is a big advantage to happy weekend caravaning trips - Wilma and Rudolph have a very flash campervan and since they hail originally from the town almost next door to ours, we had something to talk about while we got to know one another! It turns out we have loads in common, not least of which an enjoyment of tramping about on the trails beside the sea and late night cards and liqueurs in a part of New Zealand we hadn't yet visited. Wilma is also a keen photographer and so we have made lots of time for taking photographs and documenting our adventures here. 
When folks actually own more than one tripod for their cameras and forget them back at the holiday park on EVERY occasion, you have to resort to the balancing-camera-on-hankerchief-to-protect-it-from-the-rock trick in order to take group shots with the 'balancer' included in the picture! It became almost a ritual - we all stood about while Rudolph got the camera and hankerchief all nicely organised, then everyone watches him half-run, half-totter (depending on the terrain) to join the group whilst counting back from 10 - (like an Appollo mission lift-off) and then whipping off the baseball cap just in time to smile sheepishly at the camera! You would think that one of these would be enough, but no.... we must have done at least five of them! When I get hold of one of these pictures, I shall post it up here for you to see! 
No trick photography here - this little guy really did sit on Jo's hand and take the bread bit by bit - we had coaxed a whole lot of these little LBJ's the day before with tidbits of bread, bringing them closer and closer to us. This little chappie appears to be really young (and probably too dumb to be scared) - but we thought it was something quite special! 
I have had a few days in which I can really relate to this old duck! and makes me think of the Introduction to one of the 'home organising' books I read years ago in which the main quote was "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom" and indeed it is! Dis al!
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