Not punch-drunk, just drunk.

Hello again explorelooselyrs.

Today I am coming from you from a little speck near the top of the North Island called Paparoa.  It's a place of windy gravel (mud) roads, small lifestyle farms, and mosquitoes the size of jet-planes.  Why am I hear? Well that's mostly due to the fact that my best friend Amanda has purchased a small 5 acre farm in this place with her brother Colin.  And since I was up in Warkworth for Christmas, Carl and I decided that we may as well make the effort to get up here for a visit.

OMG I had NO idea how isolated this place is.  To put it into a bit of perspective, the closest 'city' (and I do use that term rather loosely) is Whangarei and that's an hour's drive away.  It took Carl and I an hour to drive here from Warkworth.

It IS a really nice farm though.  And Amanda's parent's have bought the 12 acre farm next door.  So it's all one big happy family up here.  In fact they're staying with Amanda and Colin until the renovations are finished on their farmhouse.  Also up here are the people Amanda stays with when she has shifts at North Shore hospital, Sean and Leonie and three of their kids, Chantelle, Brianne and Jayden.  So it's a full house, but it's been fun.  The kids and I hang out and play cards or on Amanda's Wii, or we mess around with Amanda's chocolate lab, Ellie.

Between the two farms they have 8 cows, 3 girls, 5 boys and 5 laying hens.  Brianne gets really excited because it's currently her job in the morning to go and check for eggs.  Not sure how long that lot are planning to stay, Carl and I are here till the 2nd when we'll make our way back down to South Auckland.

On the 3rd we'll head south to New Plymouth, picking up Kay on the way and spending a couple of days with Carl's mum there with the plan being to be back in Palmy on the 5th with  Carl returning to work on the 7th.

So it's been a good long holiday for us.  I may post some photos if Carl deems any of the ones he's taken to be worthy.

Otherwise hope you all are enjoying your Christmas/New Year's break and I'll see you all on the 5th!!