So Christmas eve took the day off work and headed up to the N.Island – to Palmerston North (Palmy) where my Aunt and family live. It’s just so great to be able to spend Christmas time with family. So ate lots, drank lots – the weather obliged by being quite overcast and dull, so I wasn’t super homesick at all :)
On St. Stephens’ day I headed across to the Coramandal to see my friend Yvonne..
Stopped in at Rotorua on the way – a thermally active town, steam comes out of everywhere and the ground is warm to touch.
That pic is of the bath house.. a lovely old building (as they go here). People used to come all the way from London to get rejuvenated, and also to see the Pink and White terraces It would take about 6 months to get there.. so it must have been incredible! However an eruption destroyed the terraces back in 1886, and Rotorua town was developed shortly after to keep attracting people to the area.
So yes, on to see Yvonne.. she used to work in the MED in ChCh.. her family live close to one of the good surf beaches in the area.
We also took in ‘Hot Water Beach’. This was kinda fun. There’s a thermal vein or something running right under the beach. So you dig down about 3 feet and up through the sand comes hot water.
It was also the day when we heard about the awful news of the tsunami in Asia. My first thought was of Maeve and Andy who I’d recently got an e-mail from, and it sounded like they might have been climbing at the place I’m (probably not) still going to. Fortunately they’d left 2 days before it struck.. Not really sure what my ‘holiday’ plans are any more. I think I’m going to get in touch with the Red Cross and see if any help can be done (if they want any). I have heard that people are already climbing there again – and while 1/2 of me thinks this is completely insensitive.. the other 1/2 thinks that they need to get their tourism back up again asap.. so not really sure what to do about the holiday – I can’t cancel it so will just have to see what’s happening on the ground when I get there I guess.
Finally the long drive back again – got some really excellent views of Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings)
I was a bit silly – we’ve had really bad weather lately, but I knew these days were supposed to be fine – I really should have left early and gone and done the Tongariro Crossing.. but I guess I’ll just have to do it next time, supposed to be one of the best (one day) walks in the Country.
Then it was back down to ChCh on the 29th.
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