Righto this thread's been a long time coming and, frankly, was a complete cock-up before it even began. First off, lacking the skill, equipment or inclination of guys like Bobcock and Co., we managed to have our camera on the wrong setting so over half the pics came out a blurry mess that I had to subsequently delete (which was after buying a new USB cable to replace the one we left in NZ). Secondly, owing to the nature of the trip (Xmas, visiting relations and friends etc) most the pics are of people rather than places and, for obvious reasons, I'm a bit reluctant to post those. So anyways what follows is a random collection of mediocre pics from what was actually a really, really good trip...

So we set off:



This was on the Silk Air, CM to Singapore, leg of the trip. All my pre-trip apprehensions came to nothing as the boys were coo'ed over by sexy air hostesses and then nodded off straight to sleep for the entire trip. Unfortunately this gave us a false sense of security and when Singapore Air managed to totally and utterly cock-up the next leg of the trip (Singapore - Auckland) I had the most miserable and difficult flight of my life. Anyways, a story for another thread/time...

After arriving in NZ and a few days with my sister and her family it was straight to the beach to met some friends. This is where we stayed:



And this is a gratuitous nudity shot of my wee chaps and my mates boy having a bath :



Then it was the whole big family Xmas thing with aunts, uncles and cousins galore coming out of the woodwork and convening for a lovely lake side BBQ/Xmas lunch. This is the only pic of ours that survives from that day :



One of my boys chasing ducks. Err, chasing Xmas ducks!

After that it was off to meet some more friends at another beach to go camping. A decision which, with the benefit of hindsight, was really, really dumb. Two increasingly mobile boys and wide open spaces for them to disappear into meant we had to watch them constantly. This pic sums up the exhaustion everyone ended up feeling:



My boy asleep in a suitcase.

I did however catch this absolutle monster of a kingfish. Had I caught it the following day I would've won the fishing competition that they held (which only started then). But I didn't. Still happy with it though, as you can see clearly from my expression:



And another gratuitous bath-time pic, camping style: