Shelley makes Po keep up

Shelley the horse whisperer

Polly decides not to go

I could not get her to go...she tried a short cut and then just said NO

Megan starts out on Po

And she falls farther and farther behind! A nice old gentle man horse

Good shot Shelley

I Think this is Mission Bay, just around teh corner from us...good lines

splashin around

Polly and me, Fred and Megan playing at the beach

Megan and Fred

They did not like the gravel

Polly and I

They didn't have a black stallion, but Polly did just fine

me and Polly

Polly now lives in our backyard...not really, just wishin!

Horse back riding in Paihia

Jealous aren't you?

Anglican church

I wonder if this is a duplicate...but how would I know? these don't go all that smoothly for me.
I have been working on this for about 4 hours.

Anlican Chuch...

In Paihia, the the docking town of the Bay of Island, this church dates wayyyy back. It was so sweet. There were a lot of posted prayers inside for the people of Christ Church.

This is not to be confused with the little branch we attended. The first speaker was the YM president and he gave a teary report of how he was supposed to be in ChristChurch for a new job interview. However, the week before he had lost his cell phone on a hike with the YM. This was his only phone and his only contact source for the job. He was frantic for a week trying to get things together to recontact the company. By the time he was in contact again, it was the Monday before the earthquake. Another speaker was a pitch hitter because the scheduled speaker was a mortician called to help out there. That is the biggest problem now; trying to identify victims. Physical descriptions were not enough and as it turns out, many are not New Zealanders. There was a large class on english going on the building that took the biggest hit and evidently all of those students were killed.

deer farms?

We saw herds of fenced deer. They do eat a lot of venison...hum

Headed North to to the Bay of Islands

Paihia, the major small town to take the boats out to see islands and dolphins. This was the main whaling bay in the days of yore.

Does anyone know how to make the writing do what you want to on these blogs????

Maori village around thermal holes

Made it to the falls

We are on the Whangaparaoa Peinsula, just about an hour north of Auckland. I was almost an escaped felon there. We got a letter a few days later that we had left a gas station without paying. Luckily, it was delivered by the postman and not the police. Here you actually have to go inside to pay...a detail I obviously overlooked.

We made it to the falls after about an hour hike, counting photo stops through the rain forest Aren't they beautiful. Mark almost made it into the cold pool, the only one getting wet though was the dog that joined us as we were leaving.

The green lake

Can you believe this? Shelley dressed to match the lake, totally lime green. We did not make this up, promise.

First of hot pots area of Rotorua

This was like walking around on another planet. Rotorua area is the land of the existing Maori's.


Shelley, what is the name of this first one?

Haku Falls, Lake Tapau area

Huka Falls Jet ride. It was a crazy ride
through the river and growth on sides.
It is like riding a 16 passenger wave runner
with Ryan driving. The river was also a home to a huge flock of black swans. Fun!














Shelley, me and Megan

Rain Forest,

More scenes from hellfire and brimstone. We did have fun on this other planet...

When we got to a motel room in the little town (not having any reservations) we felt like we were on another planet too...ick.

But, it did have wifi. That plays a big part in decisions these days. We sat in the natural hot springs' another big ugh. It had a sign that said "do not put your head in water in fear of getting meningitis." Mark lasted about

30 seconds.