nz day 4: otaki

Read:

- 'NZ Day 1' here
- 'NZ Day 2' here, here and here
- 'NZ Day 3' here

We left our first accommodation with the million dollar view of night lights and morning mist and spent our third night in a big house with 10 acres of manicured Victorian gardens courtesy of the boy's mum. There were plates of homecooked hot breakfast waiting for us when we awoke the next morning on day 4.



Highlight of the day was that we got to fire some shots on a rifle courtesy of the host's partner who owns several such weapons. It was nothing new to the boy nor to Van who had lots of firing opportunities in the UK army in her past life but it was a brand new experience for me!


These 22mm bullets have a range of 2.5km.


Left: One of the rifles on display.
Right: Our targets for the morning. The toughest one would have to be that white bread tag hanging off a twig at the bottom and the black square drawn on the piece of paper.

We've taken quite a number of videos of our shooting practice which I will try to put together for uploading soon. In the meantime, here are just a few close up shots of us looking like professional rabbit killers.







My virgin shot went cleanly right through the can. Not bad for an amateur huh?



I also managed to put two bullets through the matchbox.



And two shots right on target on the tiny black square. ^^v



We had to leave the guns way too soon because of our tight schedule - the plan for the day was to make a four hour drive up north to Lake Taupo - and also because we were causing pandemonium amongst the resident white doves. While the mum and her partner prepared for the long drive, we took some time to explore the garden; we felt like we were taking a stroll in a botanical garden or something.


A white rose bud symbolises the start of a new romance.




Apparently this is for scaring the crows away.


These trees must look really scary at night.





We were tasked to pick some oranges for our road trip while passing through the fruit trees section in the garden. There were more lemons than oranges that we could find so we failed miserably at our assignment.

At that, we left this beautiful place for our next destination.