Not far down the road from us, by the waterfront, there's a big open air, salt water swimming pool called Parnell Baths tucked in behind Point Resolution and about 20 metres from Tamaki Drive, one of Auckland's main thoroughfares. Its hard to explain the location, but its really cool.

Anyway, they've been closed for renovation ever since we got here and we've been wandering down there every now and again to see how the renovations were going.

Early stages of renovation.

We were convinced that it would be next summer before it was finished (judging by the state of the place). But about a month ago we were down in the are for a walk and, good god, it looked nearly finished.

So, the opening day was yesterday and it looks great. The weather is a lot better today, so I'm going to head down for a swim later. Its a pity we won't be around Auckland much longer to use it.

Opening day.

Apparently this place first opened in 1911 - looked a bit different then I'd say ...

This weekend we headed off to Raglan just for Saturday and Sunday. Raglan is on the west coast, about two hours south of Auckland and is famous for its surfing. We stayed in a campsite up in the hills above Raglan with amazing views of the coastline. What was really weird about the place was that most of the site was taken up with railway carriages painted garily and converted into little cabins for people to stay in. Why didn't I take a photo ?

On the way back we stopped of at this waterfall buried in the bush to have a picnic. Apparently I'm a bit slow 'cause it took me a good twenty minutes to twig why it was called "Bridal Veil Falls" ...

Bridal Veil Falls.

So apparently us Irish have a drinking problem. At least it doesn't seem to have affected our spelling !!!

Hmm ...

We haven't been up to a hell of a lot lately. There was an Italian tall ship in dock recently so we went and took a few pictures of it ...

Tall ship.

Rigging on the ship.

Over the weekend I did a couple of totally Irish things that I rarely even do when I'm at home - I played hurling on Saturday and had a feed of blaas for breakfast on Sunday.

If you're not Irish - hurling is a sport in which you clatter a small leather ball around a pitch with a wooden stick. Its a really fast flowing skillful game when played properly - obviously I'm pathetic at it, though ...

If you're not from Waterford - a blaa is a small, soft, floury bun which Waterford people eat for breakfast with loads of butter. You can't really get them anywhere outside Waterford ... except Baker's Delight here in Auckland. Weird.

Playing hurling.

The new addition to the McLoughlin clan arrived on 5 December. They called him Conor. He's a big fella with a classy hairstyle and as you can see destined to play rugby for Munster ...

Nice to look at and hold and very very nice to give back to mammy when the bawling starts ... so there is no need to worry about me getting broody !!!

The Claw II

We went on our first big New Zealand camping adventure in our car at the start of December. We headed north for some fine weather and beaches. Camping was cool ... its amazing how much better food tastes when its cooked outside.

Me on Ninety Mile Beach.

On our way back we called into one of the bigger towns in the area i.e. it has a supermarket. Kerikeri is actually very pretty. Lots of backpackers end up going fruitpicking here. They always get the best of the weather up around this area.

Bootiful.

I felt a little left out when they got a new real live puppy at home so Mark got me a puppy of my own. His name is Droozy, he's very small and cute, very fluffy and requires no feeding. A spin in the washing machine and he's clean ... who needs a real live puppy, eh ?

Droozy.

After a very wierd build up to Christmas it finally arrived. Its very hard to get in the mood for doing Christmas shopping when its so sunny !

We went to Ian and Sharon's house for Christmas day. With Sharon's parents and a few ex-pats there were 10 of us there for the barbie. The weather was great although in other parts of the country it rained and even snowed on the south island.

Everyone brought a dish or two and there wasn't a turkey or ham in sight. Although we did have Christmas pudding ... Icecream with all the fruity and alcoholic bits that are normally in Christmas pudding ... a good alternative.

Cathy the red nosed reindeer.

We had a great day. Everyone was stuffed silly and nice and merry by the time the day was over. Thanks to our hosts Ian and Sharon (and Conor who was the centre of attention all day !!)

The men could be doing the washing up, but who'd believe that ...

Everyone goes on holidays over Christmas and its generally to the beaches because the weather is so good. We tried to avoid some of the more popular places but traffic was still chaotic leaving Auckland.

We're really getting into the camping thing. Mark was the chef most of the time just because he got to play with fire when lighting the trangia :)

Chef Mark

We drove around some of the east cape which is a pretty deserted area of the north island. The inhabitants in the little villages around the coast are mainly maori and look strangely at us foreign tourists. They know how to make money from us though !!!

Most of the east cape is covered by forest and bush so driving around there was cool. Amazing scenery and lots of twists and turns in the road.

Bridge over a river in the middle of nowhere.

In places the sea was calm and serene but in other places it looked quite wild and uninviting.

Fiery seas on the East Cape.

One of first places we stayed was Waihi which has a gorgeous beach but the town makes most of its income from a huge mine rather than the tourists. It was amazing to look down into it and see the little matchstick men at the bottom. Those trucks are really really big when you are standing right beside them !

Waihi Mine.