canuks

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Comments

I have enabled the comments feature on this blog. You can leave comments by, not surprisingly, clicking on the "xx comments" tag at the end of each posting. If you want to do it quickly, click on "Anonymous" and enter the comment in the field. Your name won't end up associated with the comment with this option. If you want to leave your name, click on "Other" and enter your name in the "Name" field and then your comment in the big square. You don't need to fill in anything in the "Web Page" field. When you're done, click on "Publish" to have your comment added to the posting.

Please note that, at least before the first on-site post, we won't be checking comments very often, so please don't be offended if we don't reply.

Don

And The Planning Continues

We have finally decided on a cottage at which we will spend the first full week. The cottage is located on Pukehina beach in the Bay of Plenty, which is on the east coast of the North Island a little less than half way down.

We selected that area because it is central to many of the tourist-y things we might have some interest in doing. Though we haven't decided what we'll end up actually doing, some of the attractions in the area are the caves in Waitomo which have glow worms or what they call "Black Water Rafting" which is swimming with an innertube through an underground stream. There is also the "Thermal Wonderland" near Rotorua which has a lot of volcanically heated water and scenery attractions. A bit north is "Hot Water Beach" where, at low tide, you can dig a spot in the sand and soak in the hot water as in a hot tub.


Here are a few pics of the house and its surroundings...

The view looking east:

The View of the Beach Looking East

The view from the upstairs bedroom:

The View from the Upstairs Bedroom

It is a modern building with "architecurally designed" features. This is the kitchen:

The Kitchen

The courtyard:

The Courtyard

At this point, we are pretty much done the remote booking. We are awaiting confirmation from the travel agent that she has booked our rental car and she was going to book our last night's stay downtown Auckland, so perhaps that is done as well. Other than that, we're going to wing it.

Until next time ...

Don