Vacation with God time!

  18 day break of Capernwray NZ life. This is currently our 5th day touring the North Island. Us includes me, Elise (Netherlands), Seline (Kiwi (NZ)), and Scott (USA). After we said long goodbyes to everyone on Thursday, we headed up to Auckland to get our rental car, went ice skating for an hour and than across 3 and a half hours to Coromandel. 

  

On Friday, we went to Cathedral Cove which was featured in the Prince Caspian movie. It was a 45 minute walk down to the cove and then back up but the scenery was beautiful!

Saturday, we headed to Whitianga for the day. We explored a designer's dress shop and a glass-blowing shop. 

 Sunday was my favorite day in all so far in that it was very relaxing. I got up at 6 a.m. for a swim out to an island but I didn't get even half way out before I had to turn back. The water wasn't too cold but I was afraid of sharks:) By the way, I don't think there were any in that calm bay. After that, we checked out of our little cottage on the ocean and headed to church. The worship and sermon was really good and then there was morning tea afterwards. After mingling with the good church folk of Coromandel, we hiked up to a view point of the ocean admist Kauri trees. Driving down to lake Taupo turned into the whole afternoon and we got to the house late to meet another group which we're staying with for 2 nights. The other group includes Raphael and Anna (Germany), Emily (USA), Ryan (USA), and Julianne (Canada). 

Huka falls where we went today

Today, Monday, we went to see the waterfall (Huka falls) where the hobbits went down in barrels. The water was so blue and the noise and sights majestic. 

Left to right: Elise, me, Seline, Julianne, Emily

And finally there's been plenty of time to have my quiet time with God, of prayer and Bible reading and enjoying the early morning atmosphere. We also are doing devotionals as a group every couple days and taking the time to talk about the past term together. There's lots of good opportunities in the car to talk about the lectures and what we have learned the past 10 weeks and applying now what we have listened to.