Happy New Year!

We were delighted to have visitors for New Year's Eve this year. Our friends Grace & Guy Evans came down for a visit from Utah. We were psyched to see them and spend some time catching up. We're also grateful that they agreed to haul our mountain bikes down (yeah! first dirt ride in a year today). We endured some pretty rainy weather initially, but had good times nonetheless. Luckily, the sun broke out over the weekend and we got to spend a couple days on Pau Hana in a beautiful bay in Whangaroa Harbor. Now they're off to adventure around the south island in a van. Thanks for coming Guy, Grace & Chestnut!

Rainy day activities included visiting a Kauri forest near our place. Kauri trees are the biggest and oldest in NZ, some are more than 1,000 years old.

Rere Bay, Whangaroa Harbor
There's a river that you can paddle up at high tide into an estuary that's full of birds and fish.

Entrance to Whangaroa Harbor from the highpoint on the Duke's Nose. It's about a 20 minute hike from the water with some easy 5th class climbing to get to the top. Team Evans & Martin pulled it off in flip-flops.

Grace Rich (soon to be Evans)

Guy in Rere Bay