Te Kuiti and Auckland...

Hi Everyone,Happy Easter to everyone!!!The last few days have been really really good!On friday Glen drove us out to Waitomo so we could go to the Waitomo Glowworm caves, these were AMAZING! You walk into the caves and have a look atthe cathdral (the highest point in the cave - people actually can getmarried there), you see the glow worm strands falling from the ceiling.Then you go to the river underneath and go on a boat that takes youthrough and out to see the glow worms, they looked so amazingly pretty,there were hundreds of them! It was sooooooooo cool! Then when we came outwe saw a trout! We then had a wander into the village and had a lookaround. After that Kim, Chris and Jimmy came and met us and we went downto the Aranui walk and had a bush walk to see the caves! It was reallyreally pretty, you walk through cave channels and across rivers! Wasreally cool! After that we headed back to watch Charlie and the chocolatefactory!We woke up early on saturday to go fishing! We left around 7am and headedfor the beach. The beach was just outside Awakino. It had black sand,which is from iron! Unfortunately we didn't catch any fish (but noonemanaged to that day on the beach!). We headed back around 10.30am via themouth of the awakino river - THE VIEW WAS AMAZING!!! On a clear day youcan see mount taranaki (arg not sure about the spelling!). We had somelunch and then headed to the Kiwi House - WHERE WE SAW OUR FIRST KIWI!!!The Kiwi house was in Otorohanga (the kiwiana town of New Zealand), thekiwi was soooooo cute!!! We also saw lots of native birds and we finallysaw a New Zealand silver fern!After that we headed back for dinner of fish (snapper fish), which wassoooooooooo good! I found out that the sharpened knife/global knifeobsession runs in the Bailey family! After dinner we all went for a walkto Brook Park up to the Ben Lomond summit! The view from the top wasSTUNNING! The sun was just setting!Easter sunday I woke up feeling really ill so I got up and then went backto bed, it appears that I had caught the bug (Marg thinks its the norovirus). Rob, Glen, Sarah and Chris went out to see a waterfall and to popin on a birthday party at a farm. Unfortunately the car broke down andFrank had to go and get them. Marg and Frank came to take us back toAuckland, I was very quiet all day and didn't say that much at all! We hada lovely time in Te Kuiti, it was really really nice to meet the family!!!We headed back to Frank and Margaret's and saw the sky tower and went overthe harbour bridge as we were coming into Auckland.I just went to bed when we got back (around 7pm) and got up this morning,feeling alot better! Today we went to the summit of Mount Eden to see theview over Auckland, Rob however began feeling sick on the way back andwent to bed when we got home! Frank and I went to the Glenfield shoppingcentre to get something for Daddy and then we went to Devonport! Devonportis another of the Auckland extinct volcanos but its got a rich historybecause it was an army base for years during the two world wars! It stillhas a retracting gun. We had a wander around and saw all the many sailboats coming back into Auckland harbour and saw people paragliding, fromthe other side you can see Auckland CBD. Its a really pretty spot!After that we came back here and Richard, Cindy and Baby Alan came around!Baby Alan is like Chris he never stops running around, hes sooooo cute!!!Rob emerged after that and we had left had dinner (I finally eat somethingmore than crackers!).FYI Frank sounds exactly like Grandpa, and they drive the same as well!!!Lots of Love,Sarah xxx