Urewera Tramp - Sandy Bay hut to Lake Waikaremoana
On this second day of the tramp there were two options for the walk back out to Lake Waikaremoana from Sandy Bay hut.
Option one is a four hour walk same as yesterday just in the opposite direction and option two is a longer seven hour walk which stretches further out towards a much smaller Lake Ruapani and then curves back to the road.
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Urewera Tamp - Around Lake Wakareiti to Sandy Bay Hut
Today is the first day of our five day tramp. Lake Waikareiti is a smaller lake just north of the much larger Lake Waikaremoana and its well known Great Walk. It was only a short one minute drive from the holiday park camp ground to the start of the Lake Waikareiti tramp. The first section of the walk was like a highway with a large clear track heading north with a gentle up-hill climb over 3.3 kilometers towards the shores of Lake Waikareiti.
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Urewera Tramp - Drive to Lake Waikaremoana
Julianne, Robin and I are heading away for a five day tramp for which will be Robin’s only second tramp.
We are heading to the Urewera’s where the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk is located. but there are a number of other walks in the same forest but without the without all the busy bustle of the a Great Walk and also a lot cheaper which we are heading to.
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Endeavour - dolphins and 100 Maori in a waka at Waitangi
Today has become one of the most spiritual and amazing days of my entire life, I got to experience something that probably no-one else in the world has experienced for over a hundred of years; you will simply not believe what has happened today - I could see this huge waka canoe heading out to us, it was the Ngāpuhi waka tane (war canoe) at Waitangi with over 80 people on board.
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Endeavour - cruising the Bay of Island 2
Today is a day all about Tuia 250 celebrating the dual heritage of European and Polynesian ships who traveled over the oceans to New Zealand; 3 tall ships (Endevour, Spirt of NZ and the Tucker Thompon) and 3 waka including the Fa’afaite who navigated from Tahiti to New Zealand using only the stars.
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Endeavour - Cruising the Bay of Islands
So in another fantastic example of living history which I got to experience; I got behind one of the spokes of the capstan and started walking in circles to pull in the anchor.
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Endeavour - under sail
I am writing this as a diary while sitting up in the fighting top on the foremast on the Endeavour tall ship replica, talking about living life to the fullest!
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Endeavour - Setting Sail
I didn’t need to arrive at the Endeavour until 8-30am so the morning was spent relaxing, having a last long hot shower, breakfast and then a taxi ride to the ships that make up Tuia 250 celebrating the dual heritage of European and Polynesian ships who traveled over the oceans to New Zealand; 3 tall ships (Endevour, Spirt of NZ and the Tucker Thompon) and 3 waka including the Fa’afaite who navigated from Tahiti to New Zealand using only the stars.
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Endeavour - drive to Whangarei
A few weeks ago I was looking online to see when the Endeavour replica ship was going to arrive from Australia as part of Tuia 250, celebrating not only Captain Cooks mapping of NZ but the pacific islanders who travelled around the Pacific Ocean using only the stars. While doing this investigation I noticed that the Endeavour actually takes fare paying crew, So I then thought – WOW and yes
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Melbourne day 9 - Shrine of Remembrance and heading home
After a great week in Melbourne staying in Luke’s very generous home it was time to head back to our house in Auckland, but we are not flying out until 6.45pm so we still have most of the day in Melbourne.
The only site we are going to visit today is the Shine of Remembrance, which was built after WW1.
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Melbourne day 8 - Polly Woodside and HMAS Castlemaine historical ships
Our final full day in Melbourne and today Julianne is going to rest and recover while the boys and I jumped in the car with Robin navigating again to visit several historical ships.
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Melbourne day 7 - Aboriginal walking tour and more
Today we all heading into Melbourne City along with Luke via the trains Once we were at Federation Square Luke took across the river to the National Gallery of Victoria; an art gallery which I didn’t even know about and was a great surprise – one of the advantageous of being a local.
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Melbourne day 6 - Royal Australian Air Force Museum
Thursday is the day Julianne and I split up; Julianne is going to the Australian Tapestry Workshop a place she was very keen to visit whereas I wanted to visit the Royal Australian Air Force Museum at Point Cook with the boys.
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Melbourne day 5 - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Today is the day for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! This is the main reason I am in Melbourne in the first place and involves two separate plays one after the other. Robin who is now 10 was asked months ago if he wanted to go, and he said yes.
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Melbourne day 4 - Central Deborah Gold Mine
Today I am back in the car, and this time heading out to Bendigo to do something a bit different and adventurous, I’m heading deep down into a gold mine.
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Melbourne Day 3 - City Centre
Our second full day in Australia was spent in the centre of Melbourne city. I discovered that big Luke has a handy train station just down the road from his house – so instead of having to drive in we caught a train from Melton Station through to Southern Cross station in the City.
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Melbourne Day 2 - Healesville Sanctuary
On Sunday the 13th of October, I decided to introduce Robin and Luke to the weird and wonderful wildlife of Australia by visiting the Healesville Sanctuary, which specialises in just Australian wildlife.
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Melbourne Day 1
Today I’m off to Melbourne for nine days and the main reason is to see the Harry Potter plays!!
We ended up with an Air New Zealand Skycouch, so me sleeping, and Luke watching Paw Patrol
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the official sequels to the books / movies. JK Rowling said she would never write any more Harry Potter books and instead she decided that the next chapter would be a set of two plays instead of novels. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is only available in Melbourne near us, so to Australia it is.
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Free Public transport day
On Sunday the 23rd of June Auckland City had a free public transport day in celebration of reaching 100 million public transport trips in the preceding 12 months. This is a great achievement and shows all the hard work to create a completely new bus route system combined with the new electric trains is working as more and more people are using public transport to get around our city, including me to and from work.
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Holiday Day 7: Sixth and final day on the Wangapeka Track
The 6th and final day of the tramp, 10 kilometers to be traveled over gently slowly descending terrain which after yesterday was a nice but what became boring walk.
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