A Surprise Weekend Away....

25th to 27th September 2020

I love the idea of just being told at the last minute to pack my bag, and bring myself and my passport to a meeting point at a set time, knowing nothing else! Well the passport won't be much good at the moment but I am happy to be surprised in my own backyard! Anyway not me being surprised this weekend, this is a surprise for the kids!

So Thursday morning we told them to be ready with bags packed by the front door at 3.30 on Friday - nothing else! Heidi and Marcus are happy but poor Tess does not like surprises!

This was the first weekend of school hols, love school hols - no routine, no lunchboxes, no alarms! So we piled into the car and off we go.....

Friday night we drove to Hamilton, we had originally just planned one night in our favourite resort but wanted to make the weekend seem longer and more exciting so thought we would have a stop in Hamilton and start the weekend away early. We found a great deal at the Heartland Ambassador Hotel. It isn't luxury but it was clean and had a pool and spa, perfect for us. For $151 we got a living room, dining area, bathroom, kitchen (small lack of appliances - did have a microwave!) and 2 bedrooms! It is a great location across the road from Pak N Save and some eating places like St Pierres sushi. I found it a little noisy at night with the traffic but no one else in the family seemed to notice!

Had a lovely evening, we all enjoyed the spa, the 2 youngest and craziest kids enjoyed the pool and we had a nice meal that I had made to bring along.

Saturday morning after brekkie ( I had made a breakfast sausage roll and blueberry muffins) we headed off towards Mangakino, our first stop. This was a new destination for us, it was a lovely drive, seeing the Arapuni Dam and driving alongside the Waikato River, made a mental note that we need to walk some of the Waikato River Trails.

Mangakino is a small town nestled next to Lake Maraetai and here is the Bus Stop Cafe. We had to check this out, it looked so cute! It turns out to be very cool, it is an old house bus with various attachments including a little cafe, they sell drinks, ice creams, toasted sandwiches, wedges and pizza. The pizza is cooked in an outside pizza oven and was very yummy! It was nice to see a good number of customers milling around. The main attraction for the kids was the floating playground! It was way too cold for myself and Tessa so we volunteered Garth to supervise in the water and we would take the photos!! The weather was beautiful so we were more than happy to sit and watch!

After our yummy lunch and a dip for some we headed onwards to our final destination for the day - The Wairakei Resort in Taupo...this is our all time fave place to stay. We first discovered this resort when we used it as an overnight stop on a drive from Wellington back to Auckland in 2005 and just fell in love. There is no reason to leave this resort once you are there! It is set in beautiful surroundings and is about a 10 min drive into Taupo if you feel the need to leave! There is everything you need at the resort, 2 great heated pools, numerous spa pools, tennis courts, playground, super restaurant, bar, spa and beauty place and the list goes on. During the school hols they hold movie evenings and provide popcorn and candy floss, this is just outside the bar so parents can hang in there whilst the children are occupied, the candy floss lady was working full tack!! The staff are so nice and welcoming and every room we have had has been perfect. Anyway enough raving!! We had a lovely welcome gift in our rooms (we had adjoining rooms - kids are too big now to share!), a box of hokey poky and lovely card. We spent the next 20 odd hours there just relaxing, lots of swimming, hanging out and chilling in the spa pools, there was a visit to the gym, a game of squash and an attempted game of tennis! We had decided to have dinner in the bar area but it was so busy, not too busy to be unpleasant but we couldn't find a slot so decided to head to the restaurant. They do buffet there but we were too late so ordered from the a 'la

carte menu, the food was amazing and couldn't be faulted.

We had a late check out the next day so after breakfast, they have a great pancake machine, we had time for a quick swim and then packed up. Our stop on the way home was Lake Karipiro, we just wanted to have a look around. We all enjoyed the long slide and playground and also the cafe! A quick visit into Cambridge was last on the agenda, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, the girls had a wander round the shops (pretty much all were closed on a Sunday afternoon) and the boys checked out the scooter park.

We were home late but happy and created some very happy memories.