Christmas 2015 part 2 - Bay of Islands

DAY 5

What would our day be without a morning flat white coffee before our drive up north to Bay of Islands?

We stopped along the way at Whangarei for the Kauri Clock Factory, which I bug Lance about seeing every time we drive by.  I mean, a clock factory?!  Why wouldn't you want to stop?  The Kauri tree is a native New Zealand tree that is now endangered because, like all native NZ species, it can't defend itself against anything.  Our earliest posts showed the shoe cleaning stations that all the hikes have at the beginning to prevent contaminated soil from damaging the root systems of the trees.  Now all Kauri projects have to be from reclaimed wood or swamp Kauri that's been preserved in swamps.

Next stop was Abbey glowworm caves, which are awesome.  They aren't roped off or regulated so it's a fantastic place to feel like a real adventurer.  Nathan and I went off on our own at one point through a small opening in the ceiling of the cave and ended up through another series of caves and into an open field in the middle of cows.  We wandered around for bit before finding the park path again.  I was so proud of my mom for going through the caves since she has claustrophobia.  She rocked it!

Our bach rental in Paihia

Christmas cookie making

Jespersen board games are a Christmas staple.  Lance couldn't handle the competitive nature of our games (aka we moved waaaay too slowly overthinking our moves).

DAY 6

DAY 7

Sunday best

The Christmas tree I sewed to take up with us.

Nathan won the puzzle contest.

Matching Star Wars bandanas

DAY 8

My dad, three brothers and I were lucky enough to scuba dive in Bay of Islands.  Ian finished his certification there.  My dad and I did the deep water wreck dive on the HMNZS Canterbury at about 30 meters.  It was sunk to make a reef for diving.  The fish and colorful anemone were impressive.  Then the White Reef dive was with all of us.

Dad

Luke and Nathan

Ian

DAY 9

The last day was at Action World Paihia which was this super random adventure park that was a combo mini golf/trapeze artist themed park.

The mini golf was incredibly difficult.  We gave ourselves a max of 10 instead of the typical 6.  But the descriptions of each hole written by the park owners were hilarious.

highwire

gladiator style

There were several levels of trapeze and all 4 of us kids got to the highest level, although only Luke and Nathan got the go-ahead to jump to the second rung and then flip the dismount.

Next post, South Island!