North Island and Christmas

More photos, these are still from the time on the North Island with Mom and Paul. This blogging is really a bit much after all. I think there's three weeks of photos left... Hold on to your hats, lots of out of focus and under exposed pics coming!!!!

The Joy of Cooking. Probably when Tobin began his cookie addiction, knowing his Nana.

Paul gets all crazy and drunk looking when he's around horses.

Tobin was in heaven with all these horses to examine

'Mandy', one of the racehorses. And that's a jockey beside her. It's actually two jockeys, you just can't see the one in the pants holding the upper guy on his shoulders.

Horses on the farm

Mom and Tobin swinging in the hammocks

In New Zealand it's expected that everyone drinks

An attractive hen

'Cool and The Gang' moved to New Zealand and retired to this paddock

Back on the Coromandel

A drive by shooting

Camped at Port Jackson. We only set up half the tent

Coromandel still, so beautiful

Mom and Tobin at Stony Bay.

Beech forest on the Coromandel walk

Punga? Ponga? trees, giant ferns

Still on the hike between Port Jackson and Stony Bay

Tobin's new sentences

A few of Tobin's new phrases:
"Ice cream ice cream ice cream ice cream!!!" Usually produced in a whining, pleading tone.

"Fish and chips fish and chips fish and chips!!!" Delivered as above.

"cooookiiee cooookiiee"

"Speeeeccciiiiall treeaaat" A drawling, whining request.

It quickly becomes obvious that his diet nose dived. I think he ate more chips, ice cream and cookies in the last six weeks than he has in the first two years of his life. We've created a monster.

A Few Photos from the North Island

We just got back this afternoon and I thought I'd put a few pics up. We got to NZ on Dec 16 and went straight to mom and Paul's place in Cambridge. Chillaxed there for a few days and then AMG, Tobin and I jetted up the Coromandel for a few days. We met Mom, Paul, Chris, Kirsten and Coen at Hahei and spent a couple of days there. Then back down to the farm. More to come.


I can't seem to upload anymore pics and I'm lacking enthusiasm - more will follow, so here's the start, probably out of order... Let's see:

A jaunt on the Coromandel, 3hrs each way through beautiful native bush and awesome coastline.

Jauntily jaunting

Jaunt, jaunt...

Poppa Paul hamming it up with the boys at Hahei

Hahei

On the walk to Cathedral Cove

Hahei

Pohutakawa tree

Cathedral Cove

Tobin, keen to climb - as long as my hands were there for him to sit on.

"I'm sorry son, I spent all my money on my new sunglasses so we couldn't afford a hat for you, or anything better than those powder blue and neon green shorts from the thrift store."

NZ almost over...

Yo!
No photos to update as we have spotty connections and no cable to download photos anyway. We're sitting at Outward Bound in Anikiwa with Trace and Phil, just came back from an overnight canoe trip up the sound. Heading down to Kaikoura tomorrow for a few days of surfing. Still learning but I did ride a short green wave last week!!! AMG's belly is getting big, but she's still kicking ass on the runs. And now has me running too. Hard to believe...
More to come when we get home on the 21st.

Gill out!

Bula from 'Rat-tastic' Fiji!!

Okay, there was only one rat, but it ran over Ann-Marie's feet on our first night on Waya island. Not an auspicious beginning. Actually, the inauspicious beginning actually started when, instead of the boat from Bayside picking us up from the ferry, it was two glassy eyed pirates in a rotting fiberglass skiff from some other 'resort'. Then, after they extorted $10 from us to take us to Bayside, the owners finally and reluctantly wandered down to the beach to greet us, after much shouting from the boat.
Things turned better after that though. Tim and Ani turned out to be great hosts, not so demonstrative in their pleasure in having us, but they accomodated us well. And Ani loved Tobin. Actually EVERY Fijian loved Tobin. He learned how to say 'Bula' and finished every statement with 'thank you', this would send any Fijian woman into twitters and pinches throwing their incredible afro's back to laugh. It was pretty fun. Fijians are the friendliest people I think I've ever met, easygoing, approachable and fun loving. It really made the trip.
We eventually made it up to Octopus resort to see Chris and Kirsten and things got even more fun. Fun to hang out with those guys in a paradise with the kids playing. Chris and I got to go snorkeling and diving which was great. While everyone else was snorkeling 50' from shore, Chris and I would swim out to the middle of the bay where we could find the deepest water (not really that deep) and see if we could get to the bottom. The fish were insane and the coral was mind blowing as well.
Anyway, just a portion of the trip. Pics follow. We just arrived in NZ so will have some reports to file soon. Tomorrow I start my training as a jockey for the horse racing season.

Chris and Coen

Coen looking...sunburned.

(the only thing worse than uploading photos to blogger is uploading to blogger from a computer with Vista on it)

"starfish!"

These guys didn't need sunscreen as our pale skin was reflecting pretty much all the UV.

More child flinging. It just never gets old.

Stranger lurking on a chaise lounge

Tobin wanted to stop at these bananas every time we walked by them.

In Fiji, Elvis is still the king.

the Gill/Cokes

There was a fellow out fishing off this point in a canoe made of what looked like corrugated metal roofing. He had about 2 inches of freeboard even before he had any fish in it. I guess the worst case scenario is your boat sinks and you just snorkel your way back to shore.

Crazy rock all over the place!