Hello everyone!

Thought I'd just tell you all about our lovely weekend in Napier... basically a cool little town in the Hawkes Bay region on the East Coast of North Island. Most famous for wine, sunshine and Art Deco buildings. Awesome! If you're into any of those things and happen to be passing, it's definitely worth a visit!

This was Katie's birthday weekend so we treated ourselves to a B&B and an expensive and delicious lunch in a posh winery restaurant, and then a food and wine tour of the region. Of course I would have been happy with soggy, sandy sandwiches on the beach and sleeping in the car again, but you know, Seb insisted!!

Our tour on Sunday included a trip to a farmers market where you can try all the local yummy foods, a drive up to some beautiful view points and waterfalls, and then lunch followed by wine tasting at some seriously impressive wineries.



We've come home with a good nose, discerning undertones of rich berries with a peppery mid pallet, delicious with a slightly rare fillet steak...... after you've tried 7 or 8 different wines in a row they all start tasting like ribena to me! Good fun though and it felt like a proper grown up 28 year old's birthday!! Although we did also go out in town with some friends and just eat pasta and get drunk as per usual - so not that grown up really!!

Lots of love to you all,
Katie and Seb xxxx

On the deck

On the deck
Originally uploaded by ktdunn.

Self portrait of the team...

Friends from the UK (Vic and Laura were in Welly over the weekend).
Had a great time with sight seeing and lounging in the sun.

Katie says I look like my dad in this picture...I just know I need a haircut!!!

Happy days,

Seb and katie

Ahhhh... isn't it pretty! That's wellington by night. The city keeps giving us more and more opportunities to go "aaahhhh isn't it lovely", especially now it's finally decided to be summer here. The last week we have had some really beautiful weather and managed to take a trip to a beach about 40 minutes up the coast. We had a picnic and slept in the car, all very romantic until the 15th time you wake up with the steering wheel jabbing in the side of your leg. Then you wake up in the morning feeling like you're in a greenhouse and in my case with extremely puffy ankles and you think maybe next time we won't be so lazy and we'll put up our tent! Check out the pretty sunset though...


We also decided it was a perfect day for kayaking, so we hired one of those big flat double ones that seem impossible to turn, until Katie gets in and apparently I lent WITH the wave instead of AGAINST it, or something, anyway, it turns out it is possible to capsize those bad boys!

So, in other news, Katie has quit her job at the pub as the kids went back to school last week and has already secured 2 days a week regular relief work at a posh all girls school down the road, see http://www.qmc.school.nz , which is all very exciting. I taught in a little year 1/2 class for a couple of days last week, and I'm in with some scary Y5/6 children tomorrow! All very good for the teaching experience but not so good for the nerves!

Seb has decided he needs to take up at least three new hobbies a week, has a bought himself a kick-arse fishing rod (which he hasn't got a clue how to use), has taken to doing some serious mountain biking, when he's not playing golf, or football or taking pictures with a passion! And of course he works a bit in between, so he's pretty busy all in all! We're both running a 7km race next weekend, so we are trying to get fit... we'll let you know how that goes.


Had a lovely weekend with Laura Crossley (an old school friend of mine who's working in Auckland at the mo) and a friend of hers Vic, who flew down to see us. Went to some wineries in Martinborough again and pretended to know some thing about all the wines we were tasting rather than just enjoying the free alcohol, did all the sights in Welly and generally ate lots of food and drank lots of wine, woohoo!

That's about it for now, keep in touch all of you,
loads of love,
Katie and Seb