Waiheke Weekend

So this week was an eventful week! I started the week on nights having spent Monday helping get Bea sorted, the nights went ok until 05.20am when I developed some right flank pain, needless to say I ended my night shift with 1g Paracetamol, 60mg Codeine, 20mg IV Morphine and 75mg Diclofenac before I was eventually pain free having passed my kidney stone- all in all not my finest moment!
Having recovered from that and home around lunchtime on Friday, I went to bed for a couple of hours before getting up and packing for a weekend on Waiheke Island. So that evening James, Bea and I collected the Lemon (their yellow people carrier) from Andy and Em (they wanted to get the passenger ferry) and we drove onto the car ferry to Waiheke.

We arrived in Waiheke around 9pm to a beautiful rainforest retreat, we were greeted by the others with a glass of wine before stoking up the BBQ. That evening was spent with plenty of wine, a good BBQ and friends, chilling out in swimwear and dressing gowns in the spa pool and in front of a lovely outdoor fire.

After a lie in on Saturday morning we woke up to bacon butties before heading out to the Olive festival on Waiheke. We spent the day drinking wine accompanied by cheese and olives before heading back to the retreat. That evening we spent another very relaxing evening in much the same way as the previous night with a full on team pizza making effort with the stone baked pizza oven and plenty of wine flowing.

Sunday was spent chilling on the beach before catching the ferry home.

Goat Island Camping - Bea arrives in NZ

So after having worked the past 3 weekends on the trot (actually wasn't too bad as I have gotten to know a few of the ED guys pretty well and have had many BBQ's, surf days and drinking sessions with them on our days off!) I eventually had a weekend off with James, Sal and Si. I was working till 1am and Si till 11pm so they drove up to Auckland after Si finished work and arrived just before I did! We all headed straight to bed so we could get up and do something with our day. Just as we got up on Saturday we got a message from Bea saying that she had arrived and was staying in a hotel near the airport so Sal went to collect her as we got ready to go away for the weekend.
After picking Bea up we headed straight up north to Matakana a quiet little town an hour north of Auckland, we wandered around the shops and market before heading up to the Goat Island campsite to pitch our tents. We then headed to Pakiri beach in gorgeous sunshine with the skim board and a rugby ball to enjoy a bit of chilling. That evening we headed into Matakana for a pizza and some wine before heading back to the campsite for games.
Sunday morning we got up early due to the sweltering heat in the tents, packed the tents up and headed down to Goat Island, we got Bea a wet suit (well, 2- just to keep her cosy!))and we all headed down for some snorkling. We spent an hour in the water with the fishes before we got a bit too cold and went into Matakana for some lunch. The afternoon was spent chilling playing volley ball and beach games on Omaha beach before heading back to Auckland for a beautiful fish based BBQ. I think Bea enjoyed her introduction to NZ!