housemousepixiewixie *

Wow! What an eventful weekend.

#7 Visit all Auckland Regional parks. This weekend LoM and I walked Tawharanui on Saturday, and the Shakespeare and Wenderholm parks on Sunday. It rained both days so we were pretty good at getting the ole wet weather gear on by the end. There were heaps of people around too, even way up at Tawharanui.

Highlights

Tawharanui - clambering up and down the trail to get to the lookout. Plus the wood pigeons we spotted in the bush part of the ecology trail. This park is an open sanctuary so there is lots of wildlife around. (Including some surfers and camping teens.)




Shakespear - the waterfall area. The fall itself wasn't so impressive as there isn't much water around but the atmosphere was pretty good. Also the lookout to the city with a map - apparently there was a map looking back to Orewa but someone vandalised it.





Wenderholm - stonking up the hill in double quick time. It was weird going through the manuka bush. It had been raining pretty heavily so there was water on the ground except in the bush where you couldn't even tell that it had rained. Freaky.




Sad bad points - realising that 'packing in, packing out' (re. rubbish) for some people means 'dumping rubbish including used nappies in the carpark' or 'dropping snack bar wrappers on the trail'. Granted the second could have fallen out of someone's pocket (like the MAP of Tawharanui which fell out of my pocket HALFWAY around the track when we were making up our OWN combination of trail and it was getting DARK) but there isn't any excuse for the first instance. What must those people be like at home? Still on Saturday we stopped off at Waiwera hot pool on the way home for a bit of a soak. It was enjoyable but I'm not sure that it's worth the $27 (entry plus locker) fee. Maybe if I was more into the slides I'd have got my money's worth.

That night another friend came over and we had Mexican (#38 Host a (foreign country) themed meal) with margaritas (#33 Margarita night). Finally I get the appeal of tequila. Yum yum!



Today (Monday) I have been baking like a demon. (#35 Cook through the Edmonds cookbook)Not with the fire and brimstone but just lots of things from the Edmonds. (Oh - visited Couldrey house at Wenderholm where there is an 'Edmonds kitchen'. The family were related somehow.) Three types of biscuits, nachos and FUDGE! (#8 Make fudge) It was much more successful this time. Mojojojo says that the key to fudge is to make it lots of times. I think I can do that. Went out and bought some measuring spoons too.

*my cat