Wairere Falls

This is one of the places we'd thought of going to since we arrived in NZ... but just hadn't got around to getting to. The falls are the highest in the North Island (at 153m), but they're not really on the way to anywhere else, and being a bit over an hour's drive away, it's just been that little bit too far. But, after 10 days of thoroughly miserable weather, today was forecast to be cold and fine, so that sounded like weather for a traipse through the bush.

It was frosty this morning, and was only forecast to get to 11C, so we dressed the kids up nice and warm to make sure they weren't going to get cold, and headed out. The walk is really pleasant - through beautiful forest along a thundering river. The kids did a good job of walking, but we were

running a little bit late on our plans to get to the top for lunch by the time we got to the lookout near the base of the falls. We decided to just push on

anyway, and got to the top by just after 1pm. Mel had made a fancy lunch: caramelized onion and potato bread puddings and tasty lamb meatballs.

The trip back down was like any trip down: an attempt to

not slip over on muddy tree roots! Each of us managed to land on our backsides once, but didn't manage any injury.

We had intended to stop at Kaimai Cheese on the way home (another place we'd wanted to go to, but hadn't got around to!), but we only got back to the car at 3:45pm, and they closed at 4pm. Fish and chips at home had to be good enough.

A full set of photos are up on flickr