Chunninghams in Taupo: Northlands - Day 5: Farm animals, world-famous Maunganui fish and chips, and yes, more beaches

Hi again! I do think we are getting close to caught up. I can't remember whether we had written about Aidan and Jasper's favorite hotel stay. We stayed in a little cottage in Kerikeri, called Avalon. My first impression was quite skeptical, as the property is filled with cottages with names like "Air," "Water," and "Earth." It's also sharing space with a holistic midwifery practice and is proudly flying prayer flags over the deck. However, after being introduced to the animals, I was quickly converted.

Aidan and Jasper went together to the paddock to feed our meal scraps to the pigs and goats. Even the chickens knew to come round the house begging for food, which was quite entertaining.

Yummy food for farm animals!!

Papa pig (Boris) and Mama pig (super preggers - we can't recall her name, but she was so pregnant with piglets that ner belly grazed the ground where she walked)

Feeding time!

Yes, it's a baby pig, named Babe. He was the runt of the last bunch, and is about 6 months old. Super cute - he sneaks out of the paddock regularly. Here he is enjoying the driveway outside our cottage.

We traveled to a town named Maunganui, in search of its world famous fish and chips restaurant on the water. It was a pretty picturesque town on the water and we enjoyed exploring.

Maunganui

We all got pretty excited when we learned that there might be a chance sighting of penguins crossing the road(!) (Really??)

World famous fish and chips! We are all starving. Perhaps that's why it tasted so good...

Hiking around -- who knows what we'll find -- the views are pretty awesome.

Actually, we were aiming for a couple beaches, and we found them. They were pretty remote, which was perfect. It was pretty cold - not really beach weather, but it was sunny and so beautiful - we all enjoyed just hanging out and watching the waves....

... I should say that a few of us were not satisfied just watching the waves. They had to really get in it. I think the temperature was somewhere around 65 degrees. I think they may have been inspired by having this amazing place all to themselves.