We're all going on a summer holiday-lah-de-dah-dah

Well, it wasn't a 'we' going on a summer holiday, just 'me', all by myself - and it wasn't just "a" summer holiday, but seven (repeat seven of them). Talk about greedy! And I loved every one.

First it was four days in Auckland. Good swimming, usual beaches - Waiheke, Takapuna, Mission Bay. Then I went for 5 nights to my beautiful Eketahuna holiday home (look up The Cottage Eketahuna on the web)

Then I went for a week to Queenstown. I stayed at a Manchester Unity holiday home (see picture above right) but - oh dear! it was up the top of a very (very) steep hill. Okay for people with a car but I had to walk it a couple of times a day. I could have taken a taxi home every day from the town but I resented having to pay the $12-$15 fare. But in compensation the view was out of this world (see picture above left) and I was staying in a very cheap place, for Queenstown. I swam in the lake almost every day. I was worried at first because everybody had said that nobody swam in the lake; it was glacial. What rot. It was wonderful. I had a 20 minute swim every day. I hired a kayak another day but kept to the edges of the lake because I was told that if I fell out in the centre of the lake hyperthermia sets in after 20 minutes. I loved walking around the edge of the lake to Frankton and did this most days, bus-ing back to Q'town. By flashing my gold card on the bus trip from the airport to town, I managed to get a 'free' bus card for my holdiay

Next holiday was a long one, a month: Ohope Beach (boogie boarded all the time because water too wild for actual swimming), Mt Maunganui (stayed right across road from a good boogie-board beach, but got my daily afternoon swimming fix at more serene Pilot Bay), Whitianga (horrible for swimming, there'd been a big storm and for most of the time, there was a lot of debris in the water)., Lake Taupo (nice relaxing, swam every day).

At Whitianga I'd been out snorkelling off a boat and when I clambered back on board I was told about the big Christchurch earthquake. Couldn't believe it, told the woman who was showing me a text on her cellphone that she must have been reading about the September one. How sad, awful, I was shocked.
Planning next summer's holiday.....