A weekend in Rotovegas

Seems like I've spent so much time hooning around lately that I haven't been exploring Rotorua very much. But recently I actually had a weekend at home with not too much to do so I decided to explore a bit more. I found some cool stuff - there were a couple of sailing races on the lake (Lake Rotorua) and I finally got a chance to have a look at St Faith's Anglican Church which is famous for its Maori carving inside and out. There was a craft market on by the lake that day too, with some really nice jade pieces and a few other odds and bods. Here are some pics:

Sailing on Lake Rotorua
St Faith's Church with the lake behind it

It even has a window facing the lake with Jesus on it so it looks like he's walking on water! Very cool.

The meeting house at the Marae by the lakeA close up of the dude on the top of the meeting house

Yay! New house....

About three weeks ago, I decided it was time for me to stop boarding with my friends Sarah and Chad and find a place of my own. As it turned out, a Canadian girl, Andrea, had moved to NZ and starting working in entomology here at scion and she was also looking for somewhere to live. So about 2.5 weeks ago we started looking for places to live and about 1.5 weeks ago, we moved into a great house together. It's in a really nice area - just on the other side of the redwood forest from work. It's about a 30 minute walk through the forest to work or a 10 minute bike ride (or 4 minute drive). And we're just around the corner from my friends Lisa and Lucy (and about a hundred other scion people - seems like everyone lives near us!).

The house itself is great - it is almost fully furnished (which saves us buying heaps of stuff) and has nice wooden floors and a really sunny living area. And, we have a spare room for all those visitors we're expecting! So i'm really happy.

So far though, the house hasn't been so good to Andrea - on the first night she locked herself in the bathroom for 45 minutes until I got home and let her out. Turns out the door handle was broken. Lucky I got home when I did - she was just about to climb out the window and go and seek help from the neighbours in her towel!!

Me with the new house keys

Tauranga: a shopping mecca

One of the first things I noticed about Rotorua was that it isn't that great for clothes shopping (okay, maybe after I'd gotten over the bubbling mud and the redwood forest and the lake). Doesn't really bother me that much - I'm not a massive shopping fan, and it does mean that when you need something specific, a road trip to somewhere else is required.....
A couple of weekends ago, my friend Lisa was in desperate need of a dress to wear to an outdoor wedding, so she, another friend Andrea, and I decided to drive up to the coast and check out the shops in Tauranga. Turns out they were quite good - I found enough little kiwi designer boutique things to keep me happy, Lisa ended up with a choice of three of four nice dresses and Andrea just got to shop! And we got to have a nice lunch:
It was a beautiful sunny day so we spent the afternoon at the beach

just call me doctor....

Other exciting news, I recently found out that my phd thesis passed (YAY! YAY! YAY!) so I had a bit of a party at my house the weekend before last. A pic of the girls - me, Lucy, Lisa, Andrea and Sarah

And because I didn't have a squishy hat to hand, I had to make do....

A castle! A real live castle!

When I was down in Dunedin last, after my epic road trip all the way from Rotorua, I managed to wangle a day off to see a bit of the country around Dunedin. When my parents came to NZ on their honeymoon many years ago, they spent some time in Dunedin and told me all about this really cool, real live scottish castle on the Otago Penninsula. So, as I'd been dying to see this fabulous castle ever since, I went in search of it. And fabulous it was - not quite the walled, fortified castle I was expecting but a castle nonetheless, with fabulous gardens, and an 'authenically' maintained interior - well I could have been in Scotland!

Me, looking demented, with Larnach Castle in the background

Castle and gardens

Then, just as I was leaving the castle, this low fog rolled in, making it even more like a highland castle! Very cool....
Also while I was on the Otago Penninsula, I stopped at a little town called Portobello which was really cute.

And how scottish does this look?

Also saw this really cute little wooden church and the view back towards Dunedin was pretty specky too!