Halloween Auckland Style

Tiger, Corpse Bride, Vampire, Zebra, Vampire

Saturday afternoon I took a trip up north to Puhoi to The Art of Cheese factory and then to a honey-making place to watch the bees in action and do some honey tasting.  There is every possible flavor of honey you cold think of!  I also tested out some lip balm made from honey, thinking it would be similar to Burt's Bees, but it just didn't compare!  And in the store one tube of regular Burt's Bees lip balm is about $11!!! So I think I will soon be requesting a package to stock up on that at a more reasonable cost (please).  It was nice to see a bit of the country side and more hills not occupied by tons of houses.  On the drive back we stopped in Wenderholm park for a little look around and then also stopped to look over Orewa beach again.  It was a completely different sight from the last time.  The tide was almost all the way up and there were a ton of kite-surfers as the conditions were perfect for them!

Saturday evening a few of us went over to Rachel's house to have some dinner and get ready in our costumes to go out in Auckland for Party Central.  A $10 ticket granted entry into 10 different bars/clubs, each with a different Halloween theme, so once you had the stamp from the first you were good to go in the rest!  We met up with the rest of the girls in town and hopped around to most of the different places.  Halloween definitely isn't as big here as it is as home.  I'd say only about half, maybe even less, of the people that were out were dressed up.

I had a nice lazy Sunday morning and then went to play tennis, club doubles, this evening and enjoyed the nice sunny weather.  The kids went to  their "monster mash" event and then came home a did a bit of trick or treating, but apparently there aren't too many people who go out and do that either.  As I understand it anyway, over the last few years, Halloween has begun to take off and become more widely celebrated.

Then there was a little pre-bed excitement, we saw a hedgehog come and sniff around Smudge's food dish outside.  Apparently it's a rare occasion to see one of those cute, little, spiky things waddle up.

Overlooking Wenderholm Park

Kite Surfing at Orewa

Rachel, An and I