Hallooooo!

Well - the weather is feeling very summery now - so much so that daughter and I decided to go for a day out this Saturday to Goat Island:

http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/res/gi/

Have a look!

Click on the links and you'll see some cool photos and information about the site.

We loaded the car with all essentials required for this important excursion into the depths with:

togs (cossies)
flippers
snorkels
sun cream
board shorts
food
water
and lady stuff

The views on the drive there alone are awesome (kiwi word) enough, never mind Goat Island itself! It took about 1 1/2 hours to get there and it is all totally free! Of course, if you want a trip on the glass bottomed boat, then you pay for that!

It was busy once we arrived (however in UK terms it was quiet!) and we immediately began to strip off and apply lots of suncream!

Masks and snorkels were adjusted, flippers put on and we then tried to get into the water without falling over (stupid me had left the plastic foot shaper things in and kept wondering why my fins were so tight and hurt when I tried to kick - I could hardly get them off when we got out of the sea - derrrrr).

Lots of giggles later, we were in - the water was rather chilly, but it had warm patches in the shallower areas, so we survived. Once our faces were immersed, we immediately saw LOADS of fush! They were everywhere - the snapper were HUGE! One of them kept coming towards us and we kept backing off - it looked EVIL.....

There were blue fush, black and white fush, yellow fush, bottom feeders and floaters (now, now) and it was COOOOOOOL!

Daughter decided to experiment with noise whilst we were exploring, but didn't warn me first - one minute we were swumming happily amongst the fush and pointing excitedly, the nixt all I heard was a strange groaning sound coming from her - she had decided to see whether fush would react to the mooing sound of a cow!

Well - all I can say is that I nearly drowned! I had to dash up, pull my snorkel from mouth and heave off my mask due to danger of swallowing copious amounts of water in my hilarity!

Later on, I warned her seriously to warn me of further experimentations.....

It was sooooo funny!

Anyhoo, we had a fabbie day.

Sunday was spent going for dim sum somewhere in the depths of the trendy viaduct area. We stuffed our faces and then rolled home!

Visited our neighbours from the UK in their lovely new house and nearly fell asleep over the yummy glass of wine given to me - not a good combination - full belly, warm room, comfy chairs, afternoon and wine.......

Altogether a luverly weekend and roll on Thursday when we head for Judea (Tauranga, Bay of Plenty). We have booked to visit a live volcano (White Island) on the 22nd Dec - should be coooool! Here's the fabbie link:

http://www.whiteisland.co.nz/new/PeeJay%20Vessels1.htm

Have a peek at the Photo Gallery - doesn't it look cool?!

Really looking forward to this.

Well - taraa fer noo and I'll post photos as and when of the holiday.

See ya.

x Sue