New Wheels

No ,we haven't bought a new car but while we were in NZ we did pick up some new wheels for Angela's bike. 

After asking around at some of the bike shops in Auckland we learnt that at the time we bought Angela's bike Avanti had a batch of wheels that had been built with dud spokes from China. This is why they were breaking. The Avanti shop offered to replace all the old spokes for free, but of course the old wheels are in Samoa. Unfortunately the rear wheel was quite badly buckled and not worth saving, so we managed to pick up a new set of wheels a discounted price thanks to Avanti.

The day we got home Angela had me at work on the bike, transferring the brakes, gears etc from her old wheels to the new ones so that we could get out for a ride. This time I knew I had all the tools and knew what to do after having done it once or twice already. So the new wheels were ready to go and the next day we took them out for a test.

It was Sunday and we decided to ride around the coast to Malua, where the turtle pool is, so that we could look at the turtles and maybe have a swim in the sea.  I thought it would be about 8 km, but it was actually about 13.5km. Still, it was a nice ride and the bike went well. We discovered that riding on Sunday is great because there are very few cars on the road andas we were riding along the main highway (Samoa's equivalent of State Highway 1) there were no dogs.  

So we watched the turtles for a while and then discovered a fresh water swimming hole across the road.  We had a nice refreshing dip before riding home.  The ride was a bit further than expected, but the bike is good so now we can start training to ride around Savaii.  

Happy New Year

We are back in Samoa now after spending our  3 week Christmas break in New Zealand.  We had a wonderful time and it was great to catch up with family and friends.  

We seemed to be on the go every day and the time flew by.  In between all of the eating, drinking and visiting Angela also managed to fit in a whole lot of shopping - just stocking up on the things we can't get here and topping up our DVD collection because Samoan TV hasn't improved!! With all the shopping and Xmas presents our bags were a little bit too heavy on the flight home (20kg over, actually) and we had to pay for our excess baggage. 

It was nice to see our kitty, Jacky too. I think she remembered us, but she is obviously very happy in her new home. We even got to spend a night at the bach, but it was too cold for us to go for a swim! Sorry to everyone that had to listen to us complaining about the cold, but apart from a few nice days the weather in NZ was a lot cooler than what we are now used to. 

Before we flew out I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate my birthday with Mum and Hedley for the first time in ages. We had a great day kayaking down the Puhoi River from Puhoi to Wenderholm, followed by a very pleasant dinner in Orewa.

We would just like to say a big thank-you to everyone that feed us, gave us somewhere to stay, drove us around, or helped us enjoy holiday. Special thanks of course to our parents for looking after us so well.