Day 2 in New Zealand

Woke up this morning, local time 5am; pretty good for the jetlag.  It helped that we stayed quite busy yesterday after we were picked up from the airport in New Plymouth.  My aunt Suzanne and Grandfather picked us up mid-morning and we headed back to my Grandfather’s house, although Suzanne had to head back to work promptly.  There we did some catching up with my Grandfather for a while, who hasn’t changed much since my last visit in 2007.  Still a stubborn fool who refuses to wear his hearing aid, going on and on about The War, and asking over and over when the rugby or football game is on.

After a bit of catching up, my dad and brother and I went out in my Grandfather’s car.  We parked downtown by the beach and walked up and down the main drag, checking out a few shops as we went.  Then we walked up and down the ocean-front path for a bit before heading back to the car.

Next we drove on to stop at a few local beach spots along the windy coast.  Low tide made it nice to do a bit of exploring on the beach.  We stopped along the marina and walked out the pier to look back on the harbor and breathtaking landscape.

We stopped at a few parks to take a walk through and then swung by the market for a few things for teatime :p  The rest of the night was spent playing Scrabble and eating some delicious local steak.  We all crashed pretty early last night and got a good nights rest.  Today we are heading to my dad’s best friend Howard’s place.  He owns one of the most amazing plots of land that I have ever seen.  Got to go, we are heading out soon.

More to come soon.