Sorry ladies, I'm taken

Well my time in PNG has now come to an end. The last 5 months have been some of the most memorable and enjoyable months of my life. I can not speak highly enough of the friends I have made in such a short period of time. There was one person in particular that I have gotten to know particularly well over the last few months. If you look back at previous posting of the last few months Tiffany's name pops up every now and again, but to my surprise these mentions didn't even trigger a comment from any family members. It seems Daryl's comment on Shannon while I was in Vancouver has made him a little reluctant to try and hassle me in such a public forum. Any way I was rather excited when Tiffany (also known as T) suggested that she would like to come and spend a week in New Zealand over the Christmas period. T was able to get a seat on the same flight as me from Cairns to Auckland, resulting in the potentially awkward situation of being greeted at the airport by my parents, brothers and nephews and nieces. Being the somewhat cautious person that I am, my family had heard nothing of T other than the few mentions on my blog. My nephew Jordan quickly decided that he wanted to find out a bit more about T so proceeded to ask a bunch of questions, getting sillier and sillier as he went.

The next day we spent looking around Auckland a little. We went and had lunch at a cafe in town before jumping on the ferry over to Devonport where we walked around NorthHead and Mt Victoria. The weather treated us very kindly, not a drop of rain. Yep a December day in Auckland without any rain, what a pleasant change. After returning to the city we stopped in at the Domain to try and see the gardens but they were already closed so we had to settle for a little walk around the duck ponds. We tried getting some photos of the ducklings but they kept moving so none of them turned out all that good.

The next day we took a trip down to Waitomo and went black water rafting. It was great fun. Black water rafting involves floating down a river in a cave in inner tubes. There are a few small waterfalls that you have to jump off which was good fun. You get to see the glow worms too so all in all it is a pretty cool little trip. After Waitomo we went to Rotorua, taking a somewhat scenic route that wises maps recommended. Some of the directions were not particularly accurate, like when it said to go straight instead of left. Fortunately my impeccable sense of direction didn't get us lost and we made it to Rotorua. The next day we went up the Gondola and raced each other on the Luge. You sit on these 3 wheel trolley things and go down a windy concrete track, ranging in length from 2km for the scenic track to 1km for the advanced track. If you are ever in Rotorua then it is well worth a visit.

In the afternoon we took a trip to Mt Maunganui to see the beach and have a spot of dinner on the way back up to Auckland.

On Sunday we went to my church where it was nice to be able to catch up with everyone again, then we had lunch with Kris and Amy, followed by a trip to Piha beach to show T what black sand looks like. Then it was off to the carols in the park where we met up with the family for a picnic. Jiggles the clown was there too and he kept the kids amused.

Monday was largely taken up with last minute Christmas shopping followed by a family dinner so that everyone could get to know T a bit better.

Christmas day was not quite so good weather wise, with a few showers here and there but we did still manage to get a quick game of badminton in after dinner to try and burn off a few calories.

And that pretty much wraps up the week that T was here in NZ. It was far too short a visit really.