31^st December 2015 – New Years Everything

Another very relaxing sleep in and lazy morning.

Nothing much to report for the days events, so I thought I would photograph some of the yummy foods we've (I've) been devouring since I've been here.

The milks and dairy – WOW, OMG, Out of this WORLD amazing! I knew people raved about NZ Dairy, but crikey – it really is amazing.

Firstly the Puhoi Custards. Lightly flavoured, but they are so thick and creamy, it is unlike any custard I've ever tried. We ate it straight out of the tub – one each! Lol (there's 10kgs right there in that little tub of deliciousness!)

The Puhoi Milk – White Chocolate and Caramel. You have to try it to believe just how good it is. You think you've had good flavoured milks before, but you've not had anything quite like this! Expensive, but once you've tried it – you will soon justify the $$.

Lewis Road Creamery is also devine - REAL chocolate milk using Whittakers Chocolate.  YUMMY!!

Coconut Milk – until Auckland I thought this stuff was pretty epic. Its not “dairy”, as it is coconut milk, so its not as creamy as cows milk, but it is smooth and delicious. I have been using it in my shakes, and bought this and the Chocolate Milk since we first arrived in NZ.

Fruit Juice – WOW – I loved this one – see how I couldn't wait to drink some before the photo was taken. Its got coconut and banana in it…. and caramel - YUMMY – all it needed was some Vodka or Malibu and you've got yourself a fancy cocktail in a bottle!

Biscuits – I am a fan of anything 'coconut', so I had to try the “Krispies” - just a little crispy think biscuit you have with coffee. And the Afgans – I've heard of these so I had to try them. Not my favourite – but they are chocolate covered in chocolate, so whats not to love?

After an afternoon of eating (....there is a theme here....) – Geri & Sophie were ready to head off to their NYE celebrations.

We had somehow convinced Graeme to take us to Kare Kare Beach where the movie “The Piano” was filmed, and forego his NYE celebrations with friends.

The drive there was quite lovely. We headed up the mountain, which is similar to the Dandenong Ranges where we live, only we don't have water views like they do up there! Spectacular! The foliage started to get thicker and more sub tropical the further we head to the west coast. Its very steep and mountainous and the roads are very windy. It was only like a 40km drive, but it took well over an hour due to the roads.

We parked at the car park and followed the stream towards the beach. We had to cross through the stream, so luckily we were wearing thongs and shorts! It wasn't too deep – came up to our knee's.

WOW – its a black sand beach and a HUGE one at that. The sand went on and on and on and on before it got to the water. The mountains surrounding this beach were steep and full of lush green vegetation.

Off to the LHS of the beach was a rock formation just where the waves were crashing. It looked like low tide turning. The rock formation looked like a pyramid from the side we were standing.

Off to the RHS where the steepest mountains were, we believe there is a large waterfall. As it was miles away and we were there to shoot the rock at sunset, we gave it a miss and told ourselves when we come back next time we'll come earlier and visit the waterfall.

The wind was coming from behind us – from inland. So an off shore breeze. Breeze...hmmm… not the right word for it – as it was blowing quite hard. It was picking up the dry loose sand from miles away and whipping it up along the beach, so by the time it got to us, it was sand blasting our ankles. It was tolerable – not pleasant, but tolerable. It seemed to come in bursts where the wind would howl and then die down for a few minutes and repeat.

We set up the cameras and decided on our compositions and started to take some shots. It was still too early for sunset and the sun was sitting quite high. Steve took this time to give Graeme some tuition in photography.

I was taking some long shutter exposures, but the wind was getting stronger and moving the camera around too much, so I had to abort that. I stupidly kept taking panorama's, which wont stitch together with the ocean moving like it was. Oh well.

The sun started to get lower and we were getting excited. We thought it could be a good sunset it the upper clouds were to light up.

Unfortunately the wind was howling by this time and it was constant. No breaks in it at all. The sand blasting of our feet was now reaching our calves, and Steve's camera & tripod were blown over in the wind – smack straight into the sand.  Thank god it was alright.  

The wind got worse, to the point where we couldn't take photos. The extreme pain we were experiencing was not fun. We were all yelling in pain as each blast came through stronger than the last one. We thought our legs were bleeding after one extreme blast from the sand.

Just as the sun hit the horizon we had to leave. We pain was too much, and the wind too strong.

We were gutted, we finally had clouds in the sky and what looked like would be a great sunset, and the bloody wind & sand was our enemy this time.

As we made our way up the beach and further away from the ocean, we turned around to see the most amazing sunset!! OMG – this is the stuff dreams are made of, and we couldn't capture it with the rock like we wanted! Howls of disbelief were heard above the howling winds!

I stopped to stare and take a video and then rattled off a few shots … what the heck. No award winning photos here, but the colour in the sky was something to behold. The colour stayed in the sky for about 30mins before disappearing into the darkness.

I would have taken the 200mm lens out, but the wind and sand was still blowing hard up here too - there was so escape, although the sand blasting of the legs had calmed down up here.

WOW! We will be back here again. Not sure when, and when we do we'll come prepared – a full body welding suit might do the trick to stop the pain of the sand blasting!! ha ha ha

Graeme drove us back home. We were all shattered. Steve and I stayed home to clean our camera gear and check our photos, whilst Graeme continued on for NYE.

Happy New Year everyone!!