we've been away ... exploring new zealand in a campervan

is there any better way to spend a winter holiday than campervaning with friends ... somewhere near ohakune

we are lucky.  but it is only we you hire a campervan and go off the main trunk lines that you realise just how lucky you are to live in this awesome country.  in fact, we had such a great time we extended our holiday by two days and carried on searching out fresh snow and incredible beaches :)  here is a quick look at some of the places we took in.

we started with the central plateau and camped by beautiful lakes ....

the peeps thought the scenery was amazing ... almost zen like ;)

spending the days exploring the geothermal areas ....

and the national parks

we then hit the snow covered volcano mt ruapehi for some serious winter fun!

pollyanna's grasp of the sledding was far better ....

than her mother ;)

it was then on to raglan where spring looked like it had arrived and we didn't want to go home so we didn't ....

instead we went up and over to the coromandel ... where it felt like summer couldn't be too far away

the views were amazing

that view above was what we had to endure during lunch ;)

cathedral cove on the coromandel peninsula

we ended the holiday at some thermal hot pools in miranda ... we still didn't want to go home ... but this time we had to :(

cheesecake, london olympics style :)

quick post with a couple of photos from our olympics activities through the first week :)  steve had to make a british cheesecake as one of his contributions to our family olympic activities.  he did a great job so i wanted to share.  inspiration for this was found on pinterest from woman and home who made a very british cheesecake in honour of the queen's jubilee.  steve did a fantastic job given it's winter here so no fresh berries around, he used frozen ones instead.  they did the trick though, maybe not as full of colour but definitely worked to make the union jack :)

the finished cheesecake, complete with hobnob biscuits from the uk :)

this was the perfect dessert to watch the new zealand black sticks with!  the live games coverage starts ~8pm at night for us, so it is making for some tired peeps but they have coped well ... maybe because of the delicious food we have been eating from our second countries!

lest we forget

... as much as we are enjoying the olympics, when you hear the news this morning with the loss of two new zealand soldiers in afghanistan it makes you realise .... just how incredibly lucky you are to be enjoying sport while others are fighting on your behalf ... 

kia kaha to those that continue and to those we have lost ... we will remember