A great weekend and then a not so great one

A couple of weekends ago, we were lucky enough to have a break from the endless rain and cloud and have two whole sunny days in a row. I heard the other day that Rotorua has had a record low number of hours of sun this July which would explain why it always seems to be overcast or raining. Anyway, this particular weekend was a beautiful break from all that. On the Saturday, Matt and I took advantage of the sun and did a short walk around Tikitipu, otherwise known as the Blue Lake. The walk is about 5 kms through native bush around the edge of the lake and even though it's less than 10 minutes drive from my house, I had never done the walk before. Definately doing it again though - it's beautiful, especially on such a nice sunny day. There are heaps of little secret beaches around the lake too which I will have to remember for swimming in summer....
Then, on Sunday, a whole group of us went over to the beach at Ohope. Again it was a beautiful sunny day, so we had a picnic on the grass near the beach and then did a short walk over some cliffs to a smaller beach which was covered in shells and perfect for a game of soccer.

Me, Martin, Arne, Lucy and Alessio

Karen and I look for pretty shells

Not quite the Socceroos or the Azzuri but trying hard...

On the way home, we stopped off at some hot pools for some relaxing and some warmth. It was a very lovely day and a great weekend.

The not so great weekend was last weekend. It had some good bits, like a fabulous German movie on Friday night (called The Lives of Others - highly recommended) and the release of the new Harry book which is so gripping I read on Sunday for 11 hours straight. But the low light of the weekend will probably surprise some people. On Saturday, I drove up to Auckland with whole bunch of people from work to see the Wallabies play the All Blacks in the Tri Nations/Bledisloe Cup and, I'm afraid things didn't quite work out as I had expected. I can't confess to be a big enough rugby fan that I actually cared too much about the outcome of the game, it was bad because of a whole series of things went wrong. Here's what I learnt from my weekend at the rugby:
1) I still believe that McDonalds should only be eaten when you're jetlagged and it's the only plausable choice in the airport.
2) Watching sport live, no matter how exciting, is not nearly as fun when it is absolutely pouring with rain and you are wet and cold.
3) Getting caught in a crowd of people surging and pushing up the stairs can be very scary, especially when on your own.
4) Rugby isn't nearly as fun when you miss the haka and the national anthems because you've been held up by poor crowd control.
5) Kiwis aren't very nice to Australians when they are on the rugby field..... not nice at all. (You all thought George Gregan was mouthy...)
6) Rugby isn't nearly as fun when you are really hungry and can't get to the food stalls because of crowding.
7) Maybe rugby just isn't my game. (It probably helps too, if you understand the rules!!)
Anyway, in the end, I got my food and cheered up immensely. But I can't say that i will be in a huge hurry to be going back to Eden Park....

This post can't end without some mention of the other two major sporting events Australia played on Saturday night - The netball against New Zealand and the Asian Cup (soccer) semis against Japan. It was a sad night for Australian sport - we lost them all!! For me, the saddest one was the soccer. The netball game was one of three and Australia can still win the series if they win tonight (fingers crossed), but the Socceroos lost to Japan in a penalty shoot out and made an early and unexpected exit from their first Asia Cup. I had high hopes after their win over Thailand but alas, it was not to be. Pretty exciting game though from all accounts. Incidentally, my sister was actually at the game against Thailand, so everyone who knows her must join me in encouraging and harassing her to post some pictures of it on her blog....

Not the only one who thinks kiwianos are gross

Like me, Anne and Pete were very excited about trying new food while in New Zealand but when they brought home a kiwi horned melon (kiwiano) to try I laughed in their faces! Blahhh gross. And they thought so too!

They look so pretty:

but check out Pete's face....

A visit from Rannie and Pete

My blogging has been quiet for the last week or two as I've been busy with visitors. Important visitors from Perth - my lovely Anne friend and her partner Pete. The first weekend we spent together in Auckland - mainly because that's where they flew in and I hadn't been there in a while so was keen to check out the big smoke. We had a great time. We went out for schwanky dinners down at the harbour and checked out some cool bars including a russian vodka bar and a bar made entirely of ice. Yes, it was all made of ice - even the glasses that we drank out of were ice. We got kitted up specially in huge coats and gloves and were only allowed to stay in the bar for 30 minutes or we'd get too cold. Very exciting. Unfortunately you're not allowed to take pics inside the bar, but here's Pete in his warm coat:
The rest of the time in Auckland was marred by horrible rain so we spent a lot of time cosied up in cafes and also went to the Underwater World thing where we saw penguins and sharks ans eels and cool stuff.

At the aquarium looking for sharks!

Anne and Pete spent the week in Rotorua doing all sorts of cool things - thermal springs and mud baths and white water rafting and geothermally things. They seemed to have a pretty good time and it was very very lovely to have them to stay.
On the second weekend they were here, we all drove down to Wellington (our nation's capital) for some more tasty restaurants and classy bars. I really love Wellington - it is very pretty and there are so many great bars and cafes and they have yum cha....
The only downside I guess is that the weather is sheet - both times I've been there it has been winter and wind is just so icey! While we were in Welly, we were joined by my flatmate Karen who was on her way back up from a trip around the south island. And we also caught up with my ex-flatmate Sebastian (who has moved to Welly) and some of his mates. So we had a really nice time. I loved going to Te Papa (the national museum) and actually getting to spend time going through the displays, eating tasty food (like this place called Chow we had lunch at - highly recommended), having bagels, seeing nice bars and just generally wandering the streets and the harbour.

The view from our hotel room
Matt and me at the harbour
Sun! Yay sun!
Pretty welly

Then, sadly on Sunday, Anne and Pete jumped on a ferry to start their cold south island adventure. I spoke to them yesterday and they are having an amazing time-skiing and flying in helicopters over glaciers! And freezing their bums off - it got as low as -18 in some places on the south island the other night! The rest of us turned north back to Rotorua our sad hearts were cheered as we passed along the desert road and got amazing views of snow covered Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe mountains.