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On Friday, I slipped on the stairs at work. There are only three steps by
the front door, and I hurt my ankle pretty badly. Patrick left work early to
come retrieve me and the car. Friday was Guy Fawkes day. Guy Fawkes was one man
amongst many in a conspiracy who attempted to blow up the buildings of
parliament in England, but got caught and was executed. That night people
lit bonfires celebrating that the King was still alive. The tradition today
is to light off fireworks, and lots of them. Almost every household here
buys them and lights them off when the sun goes down. We had an amazing view
from Raymond Reserve in Point Chevalier (it was a beach) and we could see
tiny firework displays amongst all of the homes across the water, it was
incredible. Everyone really should just pool their money and try to set up
some big deal like the symphony of fire, but all the tiny ones everywhere is
very pretty to see. I hobbled up and down the beach on my bandaged up
swollen ankle with the group of twenty somethings (a few of them are
patrick's students) and played cards after.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed out to Alfredo and Melizza's place so we
could meet up before going back to Muriwai Beach, which is breathtakingly
stunning. I cried the first time I saw it because it is so beautiful.
Patrick admitted to wondering what it all meant (life) and we both agreed
that Melizza and Alfredo would absolutely love it. All of these pictures are
from that beach.

Each of these little webs have tiny spiders in them. I thought they were
like cocoons or something, but no, they've got creepy crawly spiders.

There were fishermen out and about on the rock. There are signs saying
beware of the waves and how many oysters, mussels and crustaceans you can
bring home each day so long as you have absolutely no underwater diving
apparatus in your car or on your person. We'd all stepped over the dead fish
that wasn't in a cooler or anything, it was just laying there in the middle
of all of these men and their rods. Grim. Patrick said, "oh my god! the boys
will love this!" so there is your grim picture boys.

Out on the water you can see a tiny islet and on that islet are a zillion
gannets and their nests. They fly over from Australia to mate, nest, have
one baby each (per couple) and then fly back to Australia in late January,
early February. When the islet got too full of nests, some of the gannets
flew to the mainland to lay their eggs. Now they are making their way up the
hill, and so the pathways we were on might be moved further up the hill so
that the gannets will have safe space to breed. We saw some pretty vicious
fights because they are so tightly packed in there. The signs say that each
nest is just out of pecking range of their neighbors, but it was kind of
freaky watching them fight for their spaces. You can see some of the babies.
They start trying to fly in January.

There is a little bush up there on that super tall rock in the water. It
seems only one gannet has claimed it.

I love how I named this hand picture. :D

(the hand of pat or god)

These cliffs look so much super cooler in person. The camera hasn't done it
a lot of justice. Actually, all of these pictures turned out pretty crappy.
It might look like a gloomy and doomy day, but it's really quite bright out,
I wished I'd brought a more summery hat, it was eighteen degrees out, super
windy and absolutely lovely. The water is much bluer brighter, and gives the
illusion that it's warm (I'm not sure if it's an illusion or not, when we
left Patrick didn't feel like hiking it down to the beach so we could check
but we'll be going back at some point).

When the tide is out, you can walk right into the cave and you can walk over
to those steps. The first time we came I wasn't wearing sneakers, so we
didn't go. The tide wasn't completely out, but between waves, you could run
over to the steps or into the cave.

Patrick says that this beach is similar to Long Beach on Vancouver Island. I
wouldn't know, I haven't been there. When we move back home, we're going
everywhere I haven't been because after we've been going to so many places
here, it'd be ridiculous not to.

Where is Waldo? I mean, where is Alfredo? We lost him amongst the fishermen.

The waves were totally crashing up against the rocks. I forgot to include
pictures of the surfers and kayakers.

Patrick was trying to maintain balance on the slippery rock and not get wet. There are pictures of more crashing
and splashing, we took about sixty pictures at the beach, but there's only
so many people can handle right?

Oh No! Watch out for the evil wet wave Patrick!

ahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahahahahaha ahahahahahahahahahaha
ahahahahahahaha
:D

We ate at the burger stand that was actually trying to close, but instead of
telling us the kitchen was closed, the guy grumpily made us our orders. We
were all like, 'if you don't like your job, get a new one' and a little
concerned that he might spit in our food or something. The food wasn't
stellar, but there was a hell of a lot of it for our dollar.

On the way back we passed the fruit stand that sells what they call fudge
but what Patrick calls tablet and the cheapest avacadoes I've seen here ever
at fifty nine cents each! They are usually two dollars fifty cents. Anyway,
the stand was closed. Gord - Patrick says that you're the man to see about
getting me some tablet if that's possible. I've fallen in love with this
stuff!

the sun was setting, the sky was on fire, it was so orange. We stopped in at Alfredo and Melizza's
and I got to hear all the office gossip that Patrick never tells me about.

Next weekend we're going to go to 'WildFire" which is a Brazillian Barbeque
restaurant. I hope it's all it's cracked up to be. I found it online, and
Patrick asked Melizza and Alfredo about it, so we're all going to go next
Sunday.

We've also booked / bought our tickets to come back in January. We're going
to stop in Sydney Australia for a few days before coming back to Auckland.
YES! We wanted to go to the great barrier reef, but sydney will have to do!
yay!!! We are leaving on January 4th so it won't exactly be the three weeks
over christmas that I thought it would be.

Much love to you all,
Missing you Millions!!!
April Mom

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