Meantime the other baby continues to grow steadily. One result being that Belinda can no longer see her toes. There was a drama last week when on Saturday Belinda became unwell and started to feel regular pains which were similar to the onset of labour. The hospital suggested she come in for observation just in case. Eventually around 1.00am they decided it was a touch of food poisoning and sent us home.

At least we had a practice run into the hospital and know where to go now. There are only four weeks of "work" left before a 6 week break and then the real work begins!!!

Accommodation was in a bach, really quite a large house, near the mouth of the Tauranga-Taupo river at the southern end of the lake. Unfortunately this particular weekend marked the end of the summer and onset of winter. A storm blew up the first night and by the time we were up and ready to start fishing on Saturday morning the rivers were rising rapidly. In fact so quickly we were nearly caught on the wrong side of the river.

The top picture opposite shows the team resting having struggled back across the Tauranga-Taupo river.

As a result of the weather we achieved little fishing and were instead forced to spend some considerable time and effort wine tasting, interspersed with a little beer tasting as a diversion. One good thing did come of the weekend, my four wheel drive finally got a taste of off road driving.

The lower picture is of the chefs for the night preparing a gourmets delight on the barbecue. Fortunately the back verandah was sufficiently wide to provide a sheltered spot for cooking. It was not however very tropical as the temperatures dropped towards zero and snow fell on the surrounding mountains.