I survived the holidays!

Well, here I am, back home in Sydney. The trip to New Zealand was less stressful than I thought. The Gorgeous One's parents were lovely, and everything that his friends have said they were. The rest of his family? Well, let's just say, one should be able to talk about in-laws, and out-laws, and leave it at that, to avoid creating a international incident. We got to travel around a bit. I got to see some really big trees, lots of hills, and rediscovered that I have an allergy to pohutakawa blossom. For those that do not know, that is the NZ Christmas Tree, a common tree that has red flowers during the holidays. They are especially common around the coast, and of course, where was I staying, and where did I spend most of my time? You guessed it, the coast! AARGH!!!! So, having got that out of the way, what else can I say? Well, NZ is wet. Very wet. it rained for about 11 out of the 14 days we were there. When you have come from somewhere in water restrictions, somewhere that has been in drought for more than a year. Everywhere you look, the paddocks are green. It is small compared to Australia. From where my BF's family lived on the east coast, the west coast was less than sixty kms away. Our longest trip, when we got geographically embarassed was only about 500kms. Mind you, the problems was caused by the fact that the townsite on the map where we were due to take a different road was not marked, and the road we wanted, was also not sign posted. Well, that is what happens when you take B or C roads I guess! The picture shown is of a pair of Kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest. They are known as Darby and Joan.