Auckland Anniversary Weekend Shenanigans
Red Pandas, Giant Bottles and Birthday Parties
30.01.2012
25 °C
Today I had to go back to work after more than 6 weeks off. Luckily for me this weekend was a long one, Auckland's Anniversary Weekend (celebrating the founding of the province), meaning I have a 4 day week to ease me in gently! Gerald and I spent Saturday in the sunshine at Auckland Zoo. I had got Gerald a Zoom Tour for his Christmas present. We got to spend time with Maya the Red Panda in her enclosure and even got the chance to feed her grapes and apples! She took each grape really gently from our hands, occasionally reaching out with her HUGE paw to pull our hands nearer to her! For as long as we had food Maya was happy to hang around in our presence waiting for the next tasty morsel we would offer her. Once the pots were empty she slowly wandered off, making her way up into the branches where she spent a considerable amount of time washing herself. She was absolutely beautiful and it was a lovely experience. 
Sunday found us making our way towards Paeroa - a small town famous for producing a soft drink called Lemon & Paeroa. 
We were in the area for our friends' daughter's 3rd birthday party. The kids enjoyed swimming in the pool and playing in the sunshine while the adults ate, drank and chatted the hours away! After a hearty breakfast the next morning Gerald and I decided to head back to Auckland a different route for a change. We headed towards Miranda and followed the road along the coast, stopping off for a few photo opps and, of course, geocaches.
We got home around lunchtime and the weather was still glorious so we dumped our bags and headed down to the end of our road to St Heliers Bay for a bit of beachtime to finish off our lovely weekend.
Next weekend is also a long weekend - this time it's Waitangi Day so hopefully we will get up to more exciting things.
Posted by bumblebum 22:19 Archived in New Zealand
