Honeymoon!!

Hey we've uploaded some of our Honeymoon photos into our web album so go check them out.

Here is a story about our honeymoon holiday:
First of all it was fantastic, sunny days, crystal clear ocean water (but too cold for swimming), beautiful native bush and also no work for 3 weeks!

Um, we flew into Auckland on Monday and we stayed at the Penthouse suite at the Duxton hotel. It was on the 10th floor and had a great view out over the city and to the Sky tower. There's a pretty shot of our view in the photos. The room was two stories with a kitchen and lounge downstairs and bedroom and bathroom upstairs. And the windows were floor to ceiling so they were two stories tall!!

We had a hire car and so we drove over to the Coromandel the next day. We stopped into Thames for lunch (which Gem tells me is pronounced Tems and doesn't rhyme with flames) and since we were very smart (not) we had booked our accomodation on the other side of the pennensula! So we drove further north and west to Whitianga where we stayed in a very 70's motel. Whitianga was okay but not much to do without a boat. I was a sick and Gem got a bit bored (but she assures me it was still relaxing and prettyness). But while we were there we went to Hot Water Beach which was super awesomely cool. We hired a spade from the store and went spading, i mean we dug a hole in the sand. The hot spring water running across the sand was really really hot (like burning your feet hot) and it pooled in your hole making a convenient mini sandy spa pool :). The trick was to get the right mix of burny and coldy water which is trickyer than it sounds because it doesn't mix very well with you sitting in the middle of it. It was also funny to watch the japanese tourist running across the unexpectedly hot beach.

We then headed over to Coromandel town on the west coast and looked at a couple of pretty beaches along the way. One beach had a truly amazing sand city (yes sand city not castle) with harbour and bridges and everything. The motel we stayed at in Coromandel town had a super flash bathroom which was bigger than the bedroom. It had a disco bath with in built speakers and coloured lights! We went up the Driving Creek Railway which was really cool and had lots of native bush along with the first Kauri trees we've ever seen. It rained once during our holiday (and it poured that day) but luckily we had Shrek along with us and we watched it twice, one of which was in Spanish (spanish donkey is pretty funny)

We did a coast walk up along the northern tip of the Coromandel and from there we could see Curvier Island which was where my Grandad was a Lighthouse keeper about 50 years ago. The coast walk was very pretty and there were lots of Manuka trees and Pohutakawa trees (although they weren't in blossom)

Then we went back to the east coast to Hahei and we went sea kayaking from there up to Cathedral Cove and back. This was like the highlight of our holiday as it was really fun and the guides were really funny too. When we got to Cathedral Cove it was deserted (and very pretty) and they plonked down a picnic rug and said "Welcome to Cathedral Cove Cafe!" and proceeded to make us proper cappacinos and hot chocolates with real froth and everything! So cool.

On the way back home we went through Paeroa and did the Paeroa thing (we ate pies and drank L&P). Then we drove back to Auckland and stayed with Haidee and went to the Zoo! Gem fed a giraffe and there was a baby giraffe! there too. Then we came home. The end by Jeremy

I just want to mention some of the most memorable things for me:
The day that Jeremy misunderstood the breckfast menu and accenedtly ordered two breckfasts for himself, then has to eat them both!!! he got the pancake sweats eww
Seeing all the huge Kauri Trees, they were actually massive and soo old, it totally blew me away. also all the native bush, i've been all sorts of places in the world but have seen so little of my own country so it was really cool to check out the native forrest and learn about the different trees and the ferns.
jeremy's right seakayaking was awesome, we did better at being together in a double one that i expected and didnt fall out at all (apparently its quite hard to fall out but we were sure we would). tho i'm not sure i trust j's steering skills, he probably feels the same about me!!!

I would totally go back to the coromandel, it was awesome and there were heaps of things that we didnt get to do.
Love Gem