Busy, busy, busy. We’ve returned the mattresses t0 Ivy and then spent a day in London where we visited Madame Tussauds, the Sherlock Holmes shop and looked at the hour queue for the London Eye before deciding not to! Thursday saw us in Leeds visiting Dad and Friday at Warwick Castle taking pictures after dark. In-between times we sorted the house visited the tip and put together 5 bookcases.
As part of Maddison turning 18 this week we took a train into London from Warwick Parkway as dawn was breaking!
Only one hiccup on the way there, the DLR was closed for part of the journey so we got off the circle line and then got back on!
Not as many stands as in Hamilton, it was for making money from photos and autographs. Maddy got a picture with Karl Urban and an autograph from Robert Picardo. James Darren sang during his selection and three of the ‘aliens’ so as well.
There was spare time during the day so we popped out to the Sea Life Centre.
On the way back we went to Baker Street :)
The last major trip out for the holidays was down the M40 to Slough via the M4 and some devious route around the town to bring us to the entrance. The park is aimed at small children but the rides fitted all sizes and the pirate show was excellent.
We allocated 4 days to find a house and buy a car. The car was easy, Allen Ford found us a Focus and it was ready by the Friday. The house took a bit more finding but we have a 4 bedroom house in Warwick about 20 mins from my new school in Kenilworth.
We landed 11:20am on Thursday 7th August and headed to Hatfield to see Ivy and Bob.
Saturday – Lunch in Leeds with Mum and Dad, Jane and her bloke Phil.
Sunday – The Deep and then Lunch with Daisy and her Mum and Dad
Monday – York and fish and chips for lunch with the annual trip to Clifford’s Tower
We spent the night at the Kiwi hotel, can you see where it got it’s name from? :)
Then we visited Howick Historic village over the other side of Auckland, Houses had been brought together from over New Zealand to form a record of how the settlers had lived. Everything was there from the tent to the farmhouse, church a school house where a local school was having it’s lessons!
After it was into the cafe for a BLT for me, cooked breakfast for Geoff and potato and leek soup for Maddy.
Then we wandered to the beach and from there to the airport where Maddy and Geoff rested in the massage chair.
We moved out of the house on Settlers Road on Monday 4th August. The day had been spent packing the house with the movers and emptying it out. We apparently didn’t damp down the embers enough when we emptied the fire as the school sent a message the next day to say there had been a small fire overnight! We had moved to a motel in Rotorua for the Monday night and then onto a motel in Auckland on the Thursday before we flew back on the Wednesday night.
Mud pool at the golf course in Rotorua
Hamilton Gardens, the Chinese themed one
and finally a car museum that was shut!
It’s not as easy to sell your car here as it is in the UK (fewer shoppers) so when a company said they’d buy Geoff’s car we drove to the other side of Cambridge (1 hr 45 min) to get rid. Geoff led the way and I followed in the Grandis and then we were one car less, Geoff is using my car to get to and from work this week which is going to cost him loads in petrol.
On the way back we stopped at the Gondola in Rotorua. There are only 2 in the whole of New Zealand and we have been on the in Queenstown and needed to complete the set. Great views of the lake at the top and a luge to ride on if you wanted as well as a nature walk. There was a Jelly bean shop with an interesting portrait of Harry Potter as well!
The AA book arrived last week with an article on 50 hidden wonders of New Zealand and one was close enough to pop out and see after Geoff got back from school on Friday 25th, Maddy didn’t as she’d brought her friend home to sleep over.
10 minutes down the road (SH5) on the way to Rotorua there is a right turn onto an unsealed road full of pot holes that leads to a parking area with the base of Rainbow mountain on the left and the creek on the right. As we weren’t sure how far down the track the creek was we kept stopping to see if we were there yet!
The creek is a thermal stream with mini waterfalls that has been dammed slightly to form a hot pool, no time to try it on Friday and I don’t think we’ll get back before the 6th when we fly.
