Leisure Island and Mount Central.....

We took off this morning on an exploratory mission around Mount Central.

We went out to the Blowhole at the end of Leisure Island (I stayed on the path, the mountaineers scaled down the cliff face and back up the other side!):








We stopped for a photo for Nana's calendar:


L9 thought she had discovered a southern hemisphere close cousin of holly, flowering near Christmas our time:


And we scaled the dizzying heights of Mount Drury (well, it IS a bit of a stretch calling it *Mount* Drury):


In the background is where we were looking out to from Leisure Island:


A11 waved to all the people we knew in the places written on the plaque - Gisborne, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Dunedin, New York, Perth, Melbourne, etc.:


I tell you, it was a gruelling climb, A11 stopped for a well-deserved rest up a tree on the way back down:


We had a quick play at the playground at the bottom before we set back off on the other half of our walk:


We walked down Marine Parade, back and forth through all the shopping centre streets back up to the Hot Pools end, and then all the way back down Pilot Bay to the jetty for this photo (Mum, we're going in circles! cried L5). We were amazed at the masses of luxury apartment complexes, new and old:


And finally, 2 1/2 hours after we started, we stopped for a much coveted Copenhagen Cone on our way back to where we had parked the car at the beginning: