Mum and Dad visiting and off to the Zoo

Yesterday and today I had the pleasure[yes, pleasure!] of a visit from Mum and Dad. We had planned to go for a flight, but with the winds being too strong, we went to the Wellington Zoo instead.

Despite having been in Wellington for about 7 years, I have never been to the zoo! Anyway, it was a good walk around with plenty to see, although I have to say, some of the enclosures seemed a bit small, especially for some of the more active animals, but certainly a lot better than what zoos used to be like.

Anyway, here are a few photos from today. Several of these photos have friends and family in them - see if you can guess who is who [hint, the first picture is Mum and Dad up on Mt Victoria just before going to the zoo!]!

Christmas and the "Hunting of the Native Waikato Zebra"!

I'm just back from a trip up to Cambridge to celebrate Christmas with relatives. As expected, this ended up being 4 days of almost constant laughs, plenty to eat, not too much to drink and more laughs!

Christmas lunch was to rather large affair, with more relatives and others around a large table, then more laughs [you get the idea!]. Add in to that a trip to Auckland and even more laughs [and a few lies from what I remember!]... a great time was had by all.

A special treat though was a visit to Maungakawa, aka Sanatorium Hill, on the outskirts of Cambridge. In ages past this was a place for the treatment of tuberculosis . Nowadays, all but one of of the buildings are gone, but it makes for a nice place to visit and offers great views over a fair part of the Waikato region. Included in this special treat was a safari to try and track and follow the mysterious, and not very well known, native Waikato Zebra.

See if you can spot the Waikato Zebra in some of the photos which follow. Top to bottom are photos of Maungakawa, views and the results of the safari. Last is a photo of my parents and aunt and uncle. Enjoy!

Final day in London and back home

After a very enjoyable 3 weeks, it came time to return home. Darn. I spent a lazy morning and early afternoon doing very little. We [sister, bro-in-law and niece] went out for a late lunch at a local pub followed by a walk to get an icecream... yummmm, icecream! Mine included organic honey - yum, yum!

After this, a brisk walk "home" to be picked up for my ride to Heathrow.

I spent rather more time than planned at Heathrow. Firstly, the traffic was very light and so the driver set a world record for the quickest ride to Heathrow [without breaking any speed limits]. Next, from joining the check in queue to clearing immigration and security [including an explosives check on my bag!] was just 10 minutes! Lastly, the flight was delayed by 40 minutes.

Oh well, at least it was a relaxing wait, and a good comfy flight home [which it always seems to be on Air NZ].

Photos are:

Me, Ferne, Rochelle and Sam
Ferne being her usual smiley self
Departure board at Heathrow

Enjoy!