We have now arrived in Mount Maunganui where we stayed at christmas. It is a beautiful place, full of surfers and coffe shops. 'No worries' and 'good onya' being the catch phrases. We have rented an apartment up in the oceanside twin towers for the next month. Its a fantastic apartment with lovely views over the peninsular. The surfers beach is on one side and the other is a quieter side with more boats and a harbour. Its great for the kids, we have been able to stroll along the beach in the evening and walk across to a little piece of land that gets the last hour of the sun to see the beautiful sunsets. Its awesome!


We have been looking around for schools and areas to live. We had a look at an area called Bethleham but decided against it as we thought we would have got too many visitors at christmas!! The area we have decided on is Omokora, its a beautiful area with fantastic views, the schools are great, there is a deserted beach( above - yes this is winter) with a sailing club that the kids can join and learn to sail. There has been a recent crime wave here with 1 house burgalry this year where the complete list of stolen contents had been lisited on the front page of the local newspaper. It is a big area but with a lovely village atmosphere about it. It is defintley the place for us.
Martin now has a job - he will be working at a printing company in town, its about 30 seconds from several coffee bars, 50 seconds from a pub and 1 minute from the harbour. So Martin now has his lunch hours planned! Not sure how much work he will get done in the afternoon!
We can now start making a few plans and are currently looking at possibly buying some land and building our own - not sure if we are brave enough yet. Will keep you posted on that one.

We have been to the zoo in Hamilton which was great, the kids loved it and we have lots of photographs of every animal in every position possible. Just posted one of a baby rhino and Jess.


Oh and another one!