Well, a lot has happened since we last wrote in this thing! Jack's mum and sister came out to visit us and we have moved house again!

Teresa and Joanne arrived in Tauranga (eventually after missing their flight from Auckland) on Friday 23rd November. After staying one night in Mount Maunganui, we headed for the Coromandel. We travelled for most of the day on Saturday and arrived in Coromandel Town in the evening. It was late ish when we got there so we just headed out for pizza that night and had an early one! The next day we drove over some very big hills (Mr J didn't like that much!) to Hahei. We all went in for a swim, even though it was freezing! That's the first time we've been in the water without a wetsuit on!

Jack and I were working for the beginning half of the week, but on Thursday we went to Rotorua. Jack and Joanne had been there before, but it was Teresa and mine's first time. In Rotorua there is a really bad smell of rotten eggs, it's not constant, but you'll get a waft every so often, sometimes really strong that makes you want to gag! They have random mud pools and steaming ponds/lakes all over the place, and they contain sulphur or something, and that's why it smells. It's pretty cool though just to be walking along and see a bubbling mud pool!!

We did all the touristy things in Rotorua, went to the museum, had a look at the hot pools etc. Teresa and Joanne went to a national park to see maori arts and crafts and geysers while Jack and I went to the Luge! We went up to the top of a hill on a gondola, and then rode the luge back down, it was really good fun! To start off with we had to go on the beginners one, but we only had a couple of rides each so we went straight on to the advanced one after that - we left the ground a couple of times and i ended up in the ditch on one corner....!!! Good fun!

That night we went to a maori concert and hangi - hangi is traditional maori food that they cook in a hole in the ground - very tasty!! The concert was really good too, they told you all about the haka, traditional weaponry they used and things like that. We were in the front row, so it was pretty scary at times - the guys are huge and scary looking! After the concert we went to a night time wildlife park, saw a Kiwi!

We took a trip down to the blue and green lakes, and Teresa and Joanne went to the buried village - like pompeii, a volcano erupted and buried the village and some of it has been preserved.

Then, all too soon it was time for Teresa and Joanne to go home - a very quick week!

When we got back from Rotorua we moved in to a new place - we'd been wanting to move out, there was about 7 south americans living in our place and it was getting pretty crowded, dirty and noisy! We found a really cool self contained studio - so we have no flatmates which is great! It is a 'converted' garage (well, really just a garage) with a room stuck on the end of it. We have a really large L shaped studio room where we have our bed and then couches, chairs and TV, then through the other room is the kitchen/bathroom... well, it's not really a kitchen, we have a fridge/freezer and a hob and an electric grill. The toilet is separated by a curtain and the shower and bathroom sink are in the same room! It's really difficult to explain, but i'll get some pictures up hopefully very soon! They're putting in new carpet this week and have painted it, so it looks a lot brighter! Our landlords live in the unit upstairs, and are a really nice young couple.

Back to work now, only a couple of weeks till Christmas (even though it doesn't feel like Christmas at all because it's too hot! I am very lucky and have 2 weeks off work over Christmas, so looking forward to doing some sunbathing and surfing! Jack's not as lucky, and only gets the public hols off. We've got Jack's Christmas Do this weekend, we're going to a restaurant on the Strand in Tauranga. Mine is next Friday, we are having a beach party! Should both be good fun!

Anyway, hope everyone is well!

Linsey and Jack xxxxx