Our Christmas holidays at Waiotahi Beach once again lived up to their "wind down" billing. Long, relaxing days at an awesome beach with a great bunch of people and superb weather. It is really difficult to put into words how relaxing and unstressful this setting is - the simplicity of life and the no worries attitude and approach of everybody is something to cherish and look forward to on an annual basis. We did lots of swimming, surfing, walking, sun bathing, reading, BBQ'ing, drinking and sleeping - not necessarily in that order. Pity we can't achieve this lifestyle as the norm but unfortunately we do need to earn some cash to survive the Government taxes and we do need to stimulate our minds on the odd occasion to remain healthy and sane.
We caught up with Greg, Jacqui, Maddy and Devon (The Bayers) at Lake Rotoiti for a couple of days during the holidays. We did some water skiing or tried to I should say. Liam and Sean had some fun on their first attempts - Sean ended up hurting his ankle when he shot over the front of the ski. Liam did better but after some interesting falls decided he was too full of water to continue. I hadn't been on water ski's for probably 20 years but surprised myself and the rest of the tribe by getting up straight away and dropping a ski reasonably quickly to do 3 minutes or so of single skiing! After all the skiing exercise we went over to the hot pools, accessible only by boat, and relaxed our tired and strained muscles. We headed back to the Bach about 7.30pm, fired up the BBQ and had a wine or two or three well into the evening. I must say it is a lovely spot and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. So thanks guys.
We spent a couple of days in Auckland to catch up with Dawn-Lee, Mike, Flynn and Matt (The Oberdries) and to attend a one day cricket match between NZ and West Indies at Eden Park. Flynn came a long to the cricket with us and I believe enjoyed the experience. The game was rained off in the end but we did get to see NZ bat with Martin Guptill making his maiden one day century and then Chris Gayle smashing the NZ bowlers around before the rain set in.
I will post again after the BMX national champs in Whangarei at Easter.
