Holiday from my holiday

We were fortunate enough to be offered a wonderful cottage (batch) for a week by one of the surgeons that D works with and it proved to be a wonderful week.
We had friends come for the first two nights who also have two boy's so the girls were delighted to be having a sleep over with their friends. While we adults were happy to kick back and enjoy the peace of being on top of a hill overlooking the ocean away from civilization.
Our first morning we were greeted by dolphins playing in the waves in our little bay. Darryl decided to go grab his board and get out with them. This proved to be one of our more memorable moments here so far. So amazing having my coffee looking out into the ocean with D surfing and dolphins playing next to him.
We had hoped this would be a repeated thing each morning so we could also get out there with them however it ended up being the only morning we saw them due to a lot of choppy weather and messy seaweed that floated into our little bay.
We did a few excursions up north from here to see the kauri forest with these amazingly huge trees that have been around for thousands of years, to the Bay of Islands where we took a boat tour to see some of the 145 or so islands in the bay along with a huge attraction called the "hole in the rock" (Grand Cathedral Cave... with claims to be the "worlds biggest sea cave"). The boat actually went right through the cave. Pretty neat.
We had some other local friends that we met come join us for a night or so as well which was great company and great surfing. D managed to get out surfing 2 to 3 times a day. First thing in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and at night until about 8:30pm or so. He's getting quite good :)
All in all it was an amazingly relaxing week and quality time spent with family and a few friends. We feel so blessed for the generosity of D's co-worker. Everyone here is a little like that. They really want to help you experience NZ any way they can. There really is a different pace of life here (as D was promised by his supervisors before arriving). Maybe it's an island thing (reminds us of our island back home... NL).

I will warn anyone thinking of putting NZ on their short list though, these trips through the country side are not for those that get motion sickness easily. I boast on being pretty good about this but even I had a hard time twisting and turning through the crazy windy coastal roads. Thank goodness the kids inherited this gene.