Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas! We hope everyone's holidays will be gorgeous, in whichever climate and time zone they find themselves in! Mike just pointed out that New Zealand shares the same time zone as the South Pole! We set out today to find a New Zealand Christmas tree, a Pohutukawa Tree, which flowers these brilliant crimson blooms at Christmas time. Pretty festive, even without the snow, eh?
Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, we are planning to go for a coastal hike to see a seal colony near to Wellington, and in the evening we are joining up with a friend from Berlin who is also on her own for the holidays, to go for a BBQ on the beach. Apparently the beach, and pavlova topped with whipped cream and kiwifruit, are the NZ Christmas essentials. The beach is on a peninsula which is home to "little blue penguins". Didn't I always dream of sharing my Christmas picnic beach blanket with a little penguin? Another "Thing to Do Before I Die" to cross off my list.
Christmas Day I am working, but Mike will be joining me at Jon and Sarah's family dinner (and doing the driving), so there will probably be minimal work and maximum feasting and sunning, so we can't complain. Plus we get to experience another little slice of Kiwiana culture up there in Otaki.
While we are both enjoying our jobs here in Windy Wellington (click here for photo of Mike slaving away), we have only once had two consecutive days off together, so we hitched up to Tongariro National Park lickety-split, and spent the time hiking around their active volcanoes. While a blizzard forced us down from the tramping our intended route, it was slightly refreshing to see snow for a short time. But it was even more refreshing to climb down from the ridge of the aquamarine volcanic cone lakes, to a lower altitude, and a return to the sun glowing off the lava fields, leaving the icy clouds to hang off the peak of Mt Ngauruhoe. This was the mountain that featured as Mordor's Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings. I really ought to watch those three films again, just the other day we were walking through the forest near our house where the hobbits left the shire for their big adventure!
French friends of ours whom we met in Dublin a couple years back now, Caro and Ben, also moved to New Zealand the same time as we did, so we brought a little of Europe with us! They are really into kite surfing, and took me out to the beach with them last weekend where they spend all their free time. When the wind isn't quite strong enough for kite surfing, they practice synchronized trick kite flying (photos). They met when Ben very delicately tapped Caro on the shoulder with the kite he was manoeuvring. How many other pretty girls' shoulders he had tapped that afternoon remains undeclared. Mike and I are thinking about getting our scuba diving certification while we are here. The bombed Greenpeace "Rainbow Warrior" ship has been sunk to be a dive wreck and fish sanctuary off the NZ coast, so that would be cool to explore, and certification would open up lots of diving possibilities when we travel through Australia too.
Working right through the New Year's holidays too, but after that we are going up to Mt Taranaki (which served as Mt Fuji in Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai" film) for the Parihaka International Peace Festival, as the area has an intense history of Maori non-violent resistance to European colonization, so that should be educational And my boss from Scotland, Vivien, will be visiting there at the same time!
We were inspired by Mike's cousin, Nicole's blog site with a great mapping feature, so here is our map of our route around Europe over the past couple years, it sort of just looks like a big jumble though! But the route made sense at the time!
Hope everyone has someone to kiss when the clock strikes the New Year