winter = rain

So here we have our lovely gingas at Deb and Honk's Hug A Ginga Day Friendly Friday. That's Honk on the left.

So after staying out late (yeah, we were out till like midnight! That's crazy! Ohh, we're party animals! Please note the sarcasm.) we planned on being up and out of the house to do a nice hike up on Taranaki (we're trying to hike all over that mountain). However, we woke up to lots and lots of rain. Not just a little, but enough to make our ceiling leak. Sad.
However, we did get in some nice relaxing time just hanging out. After going-going-going for the last 5 months, it was nice not to do anything on Saturday.
But then Sunday rolled around, and it was pretty outside again! So we jumped in the car (after going to mass to see the cute Irish priest at the catholic church here) and went north to Mt Damper Falls.
Taranaki's getting some snow on top!

Pretty hills on the way north.

Then some kid was waving is arms on the side of the road, and we had no idea why till we turned the corner.... COWS! yay.
Other funny things we saw on our drive that I didn't get to take pictures of:
peacock on the side of the road (yes, really! weird!)
wild turkeys (the animals, not the drink)
a set of like 6 scary halloween masks decorating the posts of a fence
boar hides (another bunch of them, like 8!) all drying out (or maybe they were feeling left out of the decorating group and that's all they had to use) on a fence.
Funny things.

Sheep on a hill, sheep on a hill...why do they all run away from me? Sad.

This dude was checking out Josh.

Here's Mt Damper falls--74 m high!

There was a bit that would come off to the right, where the force/wind from the water hitting the bottom blew away that bit of water, not letting even hit the bottom!

Josh in deep contemplation. Oommm....waterfall......ooommmm....

Then we hiked a bit on a trail that goes from Mt Damper to another set of falls about 7 hours away. We just walked about for an hour or so. Here's Josh using the very helpful little step to jump over the fence.

Ohh, piney forest.

Looks kinda like fairy land.

Ferns are taller than Josh!

Yes, more mushrooms. I'm sorry, I'm on a quest for the perfect mushroom picture to blow up and hang on the wall. Aren't these two just super cute?

And this one had a nice ray of sunshine warming it up.

This is the nice farmland that you go through to get to Mt Damper and the hiking bit. Pretty land! I wonder how many times I've used the word pretty in this blog. A lot, I bet.

Taranaki and the Pouakai Range on the way home.