16 th Aug
Rainnig today so I have decided to do a blog. Sorry for lack of blogs but I have been chilling out a lot.

Where do I start. Well Alex arrives in Auckland today, but I wont catch up with him untill Tuesday night looking forward to that. Its a shame that my other son Andrew could not be here as well. Never mind had a good talk to him this morning. Thank goodness for cheap phone calls and the internet.

Now where have I been and what have I been up to.

Kinloch
Spent a lovely weekend at a place called Kinloch. This is about a 20 min drive out of Taupo. My friend Rose rented a 3 bedroom house for her 50th birthday. There were 5 of us altogether. Once again far too much to eat and drink. Kinloch is a lovey (dont know if its a town or a village) any way a lovely place right on the side of lake Taupo. There was a shop, a restaurant and a fabulous marina.
On Saturday the 5 of us went into Taupo to have lunch and a look around the shops. Sunday we all got up and went for a walk along the side of the lake. I think this is a holiday place as most of the houses were locked up. Its a kiwi thing to have a bach(small house) at the beach. Didnt see many small homes most of them were big and beautiful with a place to park the boat.
Unlike my last drive home from Taupo this time we have more than enough petrol.

Mahia
Mahia is about a 2 hour drive north of Havelock, right on the beach. I had 5 days there staying at a friend of Lissa and John bach. There were 9 of us and still had some spare beds. Wather has been good so far. We spent the morning fishing. I caught a parrot fish, which later that afternoon we used as bait for the lobster pots. We took the boat out to drop them then had a lovely hour bobbing about on the water. John caught a spotty shark fish about a foot long
.
Its been rainning all night. The place is awash outside, good job we have 2 boats at our disposal.
Boats not needed rain has stopped. We saw a few land slides on the drive home. We must have had a lot of rain.

I have now been traveling for 5 months. The time has gone so fast, and yet it seams so long ago that I said a very tearful farewell at Heathrow.

One thing I am looking forward to when I get back is a change of clothes. For 5 months I have lived in 3 pairs of walking trousers, 2 pairs of combat trousers, 2 pairs of cut off trousers ,5 t-shirts and 2 sweat shirts and I still have 2 1/2 months to go.