More from Esther....

Day 7, Kawakawa (Thursday, Nov 18th)

We got up in the morning and packed up and left. We went to Kawakawa to see the famous Hundertwasser toilets. We still didn't know where we were going to sleep that night. We were hungry and mum didn't want to cook dinner so we stopped at a local hotel that had meals. We each had cheap meals, Abby's being the most expensive at $10 while James and I had meals half that price and the parents having $8 meals. We got a call from some people who owned a farm in Kawakawa and we decided to stay there for the night and progress onto Paihia tomorrow. After the meal we drove to the farm which was just up the road and settled there. The owners of the farm were very nice and the woman gave us a tour. The farm's main job was rearing calves and selling them so she had heaps and heaps of them. She also had a small dog, a miniature horse, chickens, pigs and some goldfish. We bought some eggs and mince off her then went and settled for bed. Dad got the TV working and we delightedly watched X-factor before bed though it wasn't the best reception. Then we went to sleep.

Day 8, Paihia

We woke up to chickens clucking and cows mooing. We packed up ready to go to Paihia. The grass was all wet and I had concerns for the braking ability on steep hills covered in slippery grass, but no drama [of course not - Dad :-)] and we started our journey quite safely. We continued on to Paihia, as there was no free campsites close to dad's conference building-the Copthorne Hotel- we had to stay at one which costs $12 per night, though included was power and water. We settled there and took the caravan off the car so dad could drive to the conference. He ended up late as we had tea late. We weren't allowed to watch TV that night, but mum did even though it stopped us from getting to sleep. We eventually got to sleep.

Day 9, Russell

We got up and were ready early to drive dad to his conference. Once we had dropped him off we decided to go to Russell. We got tickets for the ferry and hopped on board. Mum chose for us to take the slow, boring ferry over. Once we got there we wandered around until we found the museum. We entered for $7.50. It was very informative and you got to watch a video. We got some cool sayings there to do with different stuff. We left and went to the post shop place. They had a cat there, a beautiful silver tabby. Then we went to the bakery and had some delicous sausage rolls and some brownie and ginger beer then we went sightseeing. We had a bit of a look at the church then wandered around the shops. We saw a few interesting dogs and other stuff. We missed the fast ferry back since it was hidden behind the jetty so we waited at the waterfront. James was immediately glued to the water playing and splashing while we sat and waited for the fast ferry since mum had said we could take it back to Paihia. We waited for ages before we finally saw it coming across the water towards us. We walked up then down to the boarding platform. We went back to Paihia on the fast ferry; much more interesting-it took 6 and a half minutes. I can't remember much of what we did once we were back except getting fudge at Get Fudged. Their fudge is extremely nice - wish I could have some right now, and going to The Lily Pond. We didn't actually go to the Lily Pond-an animal farm place- we went to the river part near there. The river part has a waterfall - a nice curved 1.5m approx waterfall. The area where you swim in is just after the waterfull. The depth further downstream from the waterfall is about waist height but it gets deeper closer to the waterfall. It was a nice place for swimming, but it had strong currents away from the waterfall so you had to be carefull also there were a lot of rocks around the edges.  We then went to bed.

Day 10, Sunday

Our first proper Sunday, once we dropped dad off to work we went to a church there. I disliked it, it was only a small church and we made up a third of the people. It was strange and different from what we were used to and the pastor had an Irish accent. After church the library was having a book sale. I got a book and Abby got one too. We then went swimming at the the river.