Christimas in New Zealand

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!! Here is a song I wrote , enjoy and the trivia question is guess what christmas song's tune I used for my song.......... loving you all !!

Its Christmas in New Zealand

It’s beautiful to see,

Another one away from home

For the Tremblay family…

The Kauri trees, the pohutukawa trees , the prettiest scenery aside from BC

It’s Christmas in New Zealand with all of the cruisers here!

How nice to see the sheep and kiwi’s , while sailing through the southern blues seas,

It’s Christmas in New Zealand with all of the cruisers here!

The glowworm caves are open…… the cruiser pay a call , and friends we meet will come and see the boating life and all!

The boiling mud, the 90 mile beach, the places we have yet to see!

Its Christmas in New Zealand for the crew of Orca III!!!!!

Merry HO HO!

We have had quite the busy week! Besides the shopping rush, making presents and baking galore! On Sunday we went to the church Malachi has been going to. It was a party! first there was a jumping castle thing - the older kids had a blast in it! Then Kyle , Maya and Emma tried this bungy thing. you have to run on the air filled comtraption with a bungy cord around you and try to stretch as far as you can and place a bean bag on the velcro. As soon as you release the tension the bungy springs you back .. boy that was funny to watch!
Then we went into the church to " sing " christmas carols...... the whole point of coming, boy were we suprised to see on the "stage" a full drum kit , 3 electric keyboards, one bass guitar, a lead guitar and an acoustic guitar - smoke show!! purple lights , an awes0me choir and we " rocked" to the carols! It was like being at a concert!! way cool, I felt like dancing the whole time! we had a blast.. then they threw streamers and dropped balloons on us all. Also handed out candy canes. I turned to Marg and said " this is NOT church!!!" we loved it .. great way to bring in the christmas cheer. Steve was whistling and everything. check out Malachi's blog for the photos!


We went to Te Aroha to see one of Steve's friends, Mel, ( he's here from Vancouver visiting his parents) . What a beautiful drive! Green rolling hills, lots of trees and farms! It's about a 2 hr trip from Auckland. ON the way , we stopped in Paeroa - the town wher the famous L&P soda pop was first made. Of course we had to do the tourist thing and get the photo

We spent the day there, checking out the sights and enjoying a pleasant visit. The kids played a cool game - kinda like tether ball but using a tennis ball and two rackets. Kyle and Maya played that all afternoon! loving it, we are looking at picking that game up.Here are the boys - having a blast. this is a good game
Dionne loving the New Zealand " Beer" - Mel brought Steve a beer and he took a sip- then came to me and said to try it...... I did and boy did I like it!! turns out he grabbed a this instead - they look just like beer , We are getting this stuff I tell ya!!

This is Mel and his family..........nice people , nice house and she even grows sweet peas!!



Mel and Steve having a " Ball"


We went to the hot springs here in Te Aroha - its all naturally heated and full of great minerals!

how about that, eh!?


Maya is standing by the geyser - its the only soda water one in the world! Here it is , wow,eh! It didn't get much bigger, we figure its pretty well tapped for the mieral baths and pool.

On Tuesday we left with O'Vive and met up with Dorothy Marie at the Kauri Museum. We drove 2 hrs north this time.... the museum was great!! loads of the Kauri Gum ( same as our amber just from the Kauri tree, its the sap from the tree.) this stuff is beautiful.
The museum has kauri gum coal dated 43 million yrs old.! These 2 lighthouses made from kauri gum made me think of you Heather!!


The museum was huge and full of life from the past. The loggers, gum diggers, servyors ect. equipment and machinery ( Steve of course loved this) the kauri tree is NZ's largest native tree. It is a type of conifer and grows in the northern part of the North Island. The kauri hardwood forests are among the most ancient on the world.
The larges kauri in existeence is Tane Mahuta ( Maori for LOrd of the Forest) it is 4.4 meters in diameter and 17.7 meters to the first branch. It is in the Waipoua forest and we will go there once we are back in Opua area. The museum has displays of even larger treees that were growing in the past! the oldest tree in the forest is estimated to be 2000 yrs old! I can't wait to see that one!


We had a fantastic few days , very busy!! Here Steve standing next to a steam engine , he had a good time explaining how it worked to all!


This is a butter churn made from the Kauri tree. oh my god it'd huge!
trivia answer, Annette you did good!! thanks for the added info! some skytower ,eh -