WHAt yOu DidNt KNOw AboUT DeAN

I thought that i would follow jonelles lead and tell everyone 5 things about Dean.

1. As a child dean was caught doing a poo in public, by a family taking an afternoon stroll in the Whangarei city gardens.

2. Dean use to think that sanitary pads were disposable shoulder pads for womens dresses. One day he asked his mother why she needed disposable shoulder pads, and was suprised to learn they had quite a different purpose.

3. On a recent trip to the dentist he discovered that you are meant to brush the backs of your teeth as well as the front.

4. Dean volunteered to be a study model for an acupuncturist, but was unaware of what it would involve, which was nakedness and finger probing in 'uncomfortable' places.

5. Dean loves warcraft and still has all night computer gaming parties. (most people know this but everytime i asked him for something thats all he could manage to say... as he was a bit distracted by that very game).

Five New Things

We went paintballing this weekend

So anyway on 5 things people, inparticular melskea, may not Know about me.

1) I really enjoy listening to Kenny Rogers 'the gambler' particularly the line where he sings 'and the night got deathly quiet' dean and i can sit and listen to that over and over and laugh and laugh, its that way he sings 'deathly quiet' we try to imitate it but cant quite get it right.

2) I cant stand flys in the car, i will try and swat them while driving, this is not a good thing to do as it causes you to swerve all over the road.

3) Once i was riding my bicycle, and i thought that i had a bee in my hair, it sounded like it was trapped right by my ear, so I started to swat myself in the head with my hands, off course doing this meant that i had to let go of the handle bars and i ended up falling off my bike in the gutter, the friend i was with was in hysterics, especially as i continued to swat around at my head whilst on the ground...soon it seemed strange that this bee just wasnt leaving me alone...and then i realised it wasnt a bee at all but someones garden sprinkler, it was a very loud sprinkler...the story dosnt end there later that night i was in intense pain, dad took me to the A&E and it turns out i had broken my arm.

That just reminded me of the time pita tripped on some fence wire in the dark and broke both of his arms landing on the concrete path outside the sleepout, he had one in a sling and one in a cast, for those of you who remember this time its just one of those happy memories you shouldnt forget.

4) OK, im struggling to think of things...I've been skinny dipping a few times, once here in Hams at Raglan beach, there was quite a group of us, it was night time but there was a full moon. Once in Queenstown, Angel and i were going for a walk and it was a beautifull warm night, we wanted to go for a swim but didnt want to walk home all wet...and thats all so i guess only twice.

5) As a child my dream was to become a farmer, now as an adult i realise i dont know the first thing about farming, so i keep myself content with my chiken and growing vegetables. Also last year i had my pet lamb (little stevie in honour of steve Irwin) slaughtered for deans birthday dinner, so i like to think that id have what it takes to be a farmer if i wanted, the mentality of being able to kill animals. Though now the little girl next door, screams out murdereer whenever she sees me, and begs me not to murder my chicken as well. chook does need to stop going in the neighbours house and pooing on there carpet. Things went a bit sour with the neighbours on the other side after stevie devoured their vege garden before christmas.

So next i want to hear 5 new things about some other people, you can choose who you are just let me know.

T O N G A

Well we are not exactly sure what it was that attracted us to Tonga, we had a couple of other options but something about Tonga just appealed to us. For me i think it was the many comments that i heard along the lines of 'never go to Tonga', (i guess there's just something about others discomfort that appeals to me). I can see why perhaps someone who had only ever stayed on the main island might say this, but as for dean and i we travelled north to the Haapai group of islands where it truly was a tropical paradise. However i still enjoyed my 2 days in nukualofa where id heard the many stories of wild scavenging dogs that travel in packs and attack unwary tourists by night. The thing is i hardly saw any dogs, but there were pigs of all size and description everywhere, this was a pleasant surprise and made me very happy as i love pigs.

This is a picture we took flying north, when i saw it i got excited because a tiny tropical island in the middle of the ocean fitted in perfectly with how i had imagined things to be and i just new from then on that we were going to have a great holiday. As we got closer to our group of islands we could see reefs stretching out for miles and were eager to go snorkeling and see the hundreds of little fishies and enjoy the water that was an average of 26 degrees, (as quoted in lonely planet).



This photo was taken at sunrise on the one day we managed to get up early enough to see it, its taken looking back towards our resort which is just out of the picture. This beach was perfect for snorkeling, it was very shallow and the reef seemed to us to be very diverse, this same day we kayaked out to some of the other islands close by, the water was beautiful and clear and we could see right to the bottom of the ocean wherever we went, there were fish and coral the whole way, dean said it was more beautiful than Hawaii and i believe him.



So the island where we stayed was amazing, I'm glad we spent the extra money to fly there and the accommodation was great. I was even more pleased we went there when we arrived and found out a few more facts about the place. Just off the reef where we were staying was the Tongan trench, the second deepest volume of water in the world, I could hear the waves breaking on it in the night and had a dream that i floated over the reef and was drowned in the waves. And then 40 nautical miles away was Tofua island home to a live volcano and also where 'mutiny on the bounty took place,' we wanted to go out there but 40 nautical miles is actually quite a way and we would have needed to charter a boat. The other thing I noticed were the people, who did not seem to be very industrious and basically rely on subsistence farming to get by, all these things interest me being a Hist. Geo. Pacific Development graduate. Anyway enough rambling from me, here's a few more photos to give you a better picture of what its like.

On the main island we rented a car and visited some of the historical sites, the roads were pretty rough and the map rather inadequate, but we made our way to Abel Tasmans landing site and the blow hole coast. Other places of note were the terraced grave sites, Captain Cooks landing, the Tongan stonehenge and the ship wreck harbour.



Back on the island where we spent most our time we went on a bike ride around both the islands, which were connected by a rough causeway, this took us 3 hrs return, though this was a rather leisurely ride as there was plenty to stop and look at.

Pigs, coconut farms, and sandcastles, plenty to see and do, but really what else do you go to the islands for but to swim and sun bathe. Though actually i should mention that we did a beginners scuba dive which was only down to 6 meters, but hay at least weve tried it now, and angel if your reading this, on my next dive i can go down to 12 meters so maby you and i can do the red sea together.



I should probably mention that unless you want to see something you may not want to, you shouldn't look to closely at one of these pictures