The Birds and the Beards and Mount Manganui

No time to write the text for this set, but here are our photos from our visit with Warren, Debbie and their kids Jonathan (bowling a cricket ball below), Rachel (putting at right) & Samuel (with the 'shell' face below) and Warren's sister Jen and her son Andrew (playing cricket) - her husband and other son were away at a golf tournament.

We're off to Thailand in the morning - gotogo for now. Catch up in Hong Kong we hope!

Okay - we are now in Hong Kong awaiting our flight to Bangkok. We have a couple of hours to pass, so here we are.

Several of the photos here are from the Beard's - Jen was a magnificent hostess and supplied us not only with beds for all of - the Birds family of 5 as well as us 3 - but also a yummy waffle breakfast and after our energetic hike up Mount Manganui, she fed us once again before we headed off for Auckland.

The view from the top of the mount were impressive as seen in Mike's photos. Debbie and the kids chose to check out the pools around the edge of the mountain - it drops straight into the ocean. And we had lots of fun playing with the shells they collected.

From the hike, we made a stop by to check out Andrew's cricket match - we were lucky to catch him bowling and you can see the action here in his very active pitch.

And then after a nice lunch, we had a final photo with the Bird clan before heading for Auckland and our final Kiwi experience before leaving the Australian continent.