January 2012

Our tent at Orewa

Its been sometime since I posted some info on our family blog so here goes. Since Christmas camping at Coromandel we have been to Orewa twice and started back to school.

A view from our tent

Orewa beach is a massive snady beach north of Auckland with a top ten campsite which has everything. Each time we have been there we have been surprised at the weather and have extended our stay. On our last visit we met a woman who had emigrated from Bridgend in 1970 and now lives in Drury. She heard me speaking and immediately came over to introduce herself as Welsh migrant it was quite a moment especially when she said she used to live in Porthcawl and went to the girls Grammar school. She had been back to Wales in 2008, but things had changed so much. Needless to say her opinion of NZ hadn't changed - it is better than Wales!

Orewa beach

We have also have completed one year here in NZ.


My school has also gained the best ever ERO report in its history and I am enjoying developing 'real' technology at the school.

Amelia has been to yet another camp to Motatapu island not far from Rangitoto extinct volcano.

Ellen has been rewarded at school for competency in English both reading and writing and Hannah is about to start at Cockle bay school, she is now 5 years old.

Here is one more achievement; Amelia, Joanne and I have been confirmed as Catholics. I have taken the name Patrick whi incidentally is the patron saint of Ireland, Nigeria and Engineers - coincidence? I think not. Joanne also took the name Veronica as her confirmation name and unbeknown to us this is my Aunty Margaret's confirmation name too!

In this image you can see a marine reserve called 'Goat Island' the snorkelling here is to die for and the flat bottomed boat trip is well worth the money, but make sure you go after a few day of calm weather like we did. Rough weather turns up the sand and the visibility is low. We went when visibility was really good. The snapper on this reserve were huge and I mean 30 years old huge. A fabulous place.

The girls took in all of the information from the tour on the glass bottomed boat and are now familiar with the species of fish that inhabit these waters. The snorkelling was amazing and I just couldn't get out of the water. Amelia was amazed at the size of the fish as we swam from the shore to the island you can see at the top of the picture.

One piece of advice, feeding the fish is not encouraged, butu fish like frozen peas!

Goat Island

The glass bottomed boat at Goat Island