Back again

[vilakins]

We're back, unpacked, and the cats are back too; in fact, I'm typing around Claudia. They do make up for holidays being over, and so does having broadband again - Internet, I missed you! All I had time for down there was answering comments and having a quick very slow flick through my flist. Now I'll be able to go back and read stories and look at photos and vids.

I'm relieved we didn't go up north this year. They got three months of rain in 36 hours, people and whole towns are cut off, and the motel by the Haruru Falls has mostly been swept away. :-( It was lucky no one was killed. And anyway, I have now discovered the delights of Taupo: lake, mountains, an excellent cinema, and considerably lower humidity due to being 340 m / 1000 ft above sea level. I'll definitely go back.

Claudia has gone off to check everything's as she left it, and now I've got Tessa, purring with contentment. :-)

Comments

[trixieleitz]

Welcome home, everyone!

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

You're back, too! And you brought otters!

[trixieleitz]

I am always here :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You were never away. /B5

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

:-) Tessa's still here on my lap. I think she wants to collect the two weeks of cuddles she's owed.

Otterness! Did you see the floating hand-holding otters hafren posted about?

[trixieleitz]

I did! so adorable :) I think otters hold onto each other while sleeping so that they don't drift apart (literally).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah. I've never seen them sleep like that in water, but that makes sense.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Welcome back!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad to be back with cuddly cats, quick computers, and very broad band. :-) Well, until Monday anyway.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Hooray for being back in the land of cats and internets! And for choosing the right vacation spot, although every time I read that, I think of Crais, for some unknown reason.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Did Crais ever have a holiday?

We were rained out of Paihia one holiday years ago; a drawback of a subtropical climate. Taupo's weather was much milder and better mannered.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Ah-ha! No, what he had was a brother named Tauvo. :)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I suspect he could have used a holiday, though. :)

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I would have watched that episode. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha! :-) Yeah, I couldn't quite see Crais fishing by a lake like Jack O'Neill.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I'm sure your kitties missed you! :D

It is sad about the damage up north, especially the motel. I thought it would never stop raining yesterday - I woke up with it raining, and went to bed with it raining. :(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think they did. Tessa spent almost all evening sitting on me, purring happily. Even Vic, normally a very quiet cat, was squeaking almost non-stop when we first got home.

I've actually stayed in that motel too, years ago, and swum in the pool she said was completely submerged.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

Vic was probably saying, 'My pet human is back!'. :D

It becomes more than just a news story when you've actually stayed at a place that has become near-destroyed... :(

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Or "You left me, you bastards! Where've you been?"

It's not the first time either. A very nice hotel I stayed at in Fiji burned down about two weeks later. :-P

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

Fire and flood... ouch!

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Welcome back, that's a lot of rain you missed. I have found by entertaining Sue and her dogs for the last 15-25 years that we often don't realise what we have locally. Taupo is now on my wish list of places to see.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, it's about 3.5 hours away, so not that local. :-) I'll put up lots of pictures when I have the energy to download and crop and resize them. It's a lovely place.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

That's about the distance the cottage in Newport Pembs is from home and I count that as local. Any where you can get to in less than half a day is local as far as I'm concerned.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah. I've never thought about it before, but I now realise I consider local as under 90 minutes, IOW within commuting distance. Whangaparaoa, where my mother once had a bach (small holiday place) is local; people commute from it, though I wouldn't (the northern motorway is far too jammed every morning). OTOH I worked with a guy who owned a house in Tutukaka 3 hours away up north (beautiful bay renowned for fishing, 3 hours away) and he'd come down for the week to a small apartment near work.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Ah now I wouldn't consider commuting to Newport Pembs to work, that is much to far. But as far as holidays are concerned half a day is local, that makes all of Wales and a lot of the West Country local for holidays.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I'd say anything within 4 hours is OK for holidays, then I'd fly, eg to Wellington which is 8 hours away with Taupo a half-way stop. This explains why I hardly go to the further away places.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Given my choice I would fly every where I love flying but Wales is badly supplied with airports and those we do have do not have flights between them. We once had, in my lifetime, such a comprehensive and excellent rail service air travel was never properly developed, now we have nothing except the roads.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We never had a good rail service, and what we had was only between major cities. They almost took that off last year but the public rebelled, so I can still go to Wellington by train, but only 2 or 3 days a week.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Welcome back.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :-)

[alinewrites.livejournal.com]

Hello back!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Hello to you! :-D I'm about ready to go to bed, probably with all the cats. :-P

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Welcome back. *Huggles*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The cats and you lot are my consolation. I have a headache from lack of sleep (cats and Greg moving woke me every single time) and possibly fear of the really hard four days of catch-up waiting for me at work. [hugs back]

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaah! *GIGANTIC SQUEEZYHUGS*

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Glad you all enjoyed your holiday (the cats must have been well looked after too.) but nothing compares with your own bed.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wish it was my own. Last night it was full of cats and Greg, and I hardly slept. I must have woken up 30 times. They're back in their own basket tonight (the cats, anyway).

I read in the paper last week that married men's intelligence often drops because of disturbed sleep, but women's doesn't because they sleep more deeply. [hollow laugh] The writer said that shared beds weren't natural, and I'm wondering how much I've been affected by broken nights.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

A belated welcome back!

It sounds like Taupo was a really good choice - both for not being the north, and also for being so good. I know I like going back to places I know; it's lovely to find somewhere good enough to go back to.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I like doing both. I love revisiting favourite places and restaurants etc, but I also like trying new things. It was a bit hit-and-miss at first (one cafe served reheated frozen food, ack) but we found lots of places and activities in Taupo that we want to go back to.

We also discovered Tirau, which is on the way there. It's a country town which has made a thing of corrugated iron art which they have everywhere. I need to spend at least a day in Tirau because their stuff is amazing, and the two places I went into (a cafe and a place selling beautiful and reasonably-priced greenstone--jade--and other media carvings) were of excellent quality. Have a look at the town's website (http://tirauinfo.homestead.com/tirau.html) and that of one of the major artists (http://tirauinfo.homestead.com/corrugated.html) whose works grace most of the cafes and businesses - I saw the alien eye in a field as I left town. :-D Next time we'll make a whole day trip to it from Taupo.