Our Walk to Davenport

This is Miriam. It looks like it is my turn to blog. After Christmas we came home and went to work for two days. Saturday morning we woke up to beautiful weather, no projects to do, nothing to fix, no snow to shovel, no pool cover to pump off, no service projects from the ward so it was a free day. I had walked to the volcano on Davenport on Thanksgiving day. Bob wanted to do it with me again. All of the pictures I took the first time were lost so I needed to try and replace them. Unfortunately we don't have as many flowers as we did 5 & a half weeks ago. It is now summer here and not spring. Today I woke up and thought it would be the first day of no clouds. New Zealand is called the land of the long white cloud for a reason. It has been an absolute gorgeous day complete with a few fluffy clouds that appeared this afternoon just above the horizon from our apt. on the 3rd floor. Yesterday started off very cloudy so we didn't feel a need for sunblock. Boy were we wrong. Five hours later when we returned from our walk we were so so sun burnt. The people at church told us it is because there is a whole in the ozone layer right over New Zealand. Bob thought that was bogus but when we came home and got on the Internet to check it out they were mostly right. So we must always wear sunblock even on the cloudy mornings. You will see from our pictures that we had a fun conversation about croquet with the umpire. He informed us that we do have professional croquet clubs in America and they play just like they do here in New Zealand. Then you will see lots of flowers. Very cool flowers here in New Zealand. The volcano is called Mt. Victoria. There is a 20 foot retracting cannon on the top of it. Around the turn of the century New Zealand was worried about Russian invasions so they had several positions on different volcanoes that were stocked with guns and cannons. This particular cannon was only shot one time. After their one practice shot the residents of Davenport complained because of the broken windows from the blast.
It was time for lunch. We love the little community of Davenport. It is very Victorian and so fun. We found the first Mexican restaurant on the island today. After realizing that a simple meal would be minimum $60 for the both of us we headed to subway and shared a wonderful foot long. It was a terrific day for a long walk. People on holiday from everywhere. People all over the beaches having a grand time. We came home by way of the beach road on the Pacific side of Davenport. We opted not to do the 360 foot staircase that I did last time. I think because I counted the stairs and there were so many, Bob thought we had had enough walking. The stairs take you down to a really sweet secluded beach straight across from Rangitoto Volcano Island. Well it was a fun day. Today Bob received a calling to teach the High Priests two days a month. I was set apart as the Nursery Leader. We are tickled about them both. Pictures are in the album titled Davenport Walk.