Hello everyone, yes we are still alive! These past couple of weeks have involved a lot of nothing so we thought we would save a flew of the interesting things to go in the blog rather than bore you with how comfortable the sofa is when we watch a film, or how warm it is when we sit and do nothing in the sun!

So this blog is about walking, as we are still searching for jobs we have gotten a little bored so thought we would make use of the good weather and go on some walks.

The first we did was to Maraetotara Falls, which is a small local waterfall, this was a short walk from the car park and let along the edge of the streams up to where the waterfall was, along the way were many sunken trees and rocks I could risk jumping across the stream on in the hope I didn't fall in, as I would have taken the car keys with me so Amanda would have to walk home! The waterfall itself was very nice neigh a large plunge pool we could swim in when it is summer, the water is currently snow melt so FREEZING!

We have also walked up a mountain, well a hill for me but a mountain for Amanda, called Te Mata Peak. As we are still relatively unfit we parked half neat up before climbing up and down three peaks, the last being the highest point where you can Paraglide from. At the top were breathtaking views across the range as well as some wineries we have decided news should visit while we are here, it would be rude not to!

Our latest walk was back at the park where Te Mata Peak is and we were recommended to walk around the Redwoods, however as we were going round the a adventurous side kicked in and instead of following the one trial we decided to take it in turns to chose a pathway at each fork in the path to see where it would take us. This lead us to go onto three different trails before eventually finding our way back to the start. As the days go by we plan to go back and see how far we can walk as we plan on doing the Tongariro Crossing we Graham and Jo while we are in New Zealand. This is a 7-8 hour hike that takes you past two volcanoes and we are thinking of doing this in the Winter for an even more epic adventure! I recommend googling Tongariro Crossing and you will see why we are thinking of doing this!