The team's summer holiday plans

Everyone loves the summer holidays. Here's what the NZ Life & Leisure team have planned for those languid few weeks at the end of 2009 and the beginning off 2010...

Yolanta Woldendorp, NZ Life & Leisure art director

I’m so excited about this Christmas because my little niece Emily is flying over from our home town of Perth.

She’s only 11 and has been saving up all year to come and stay with me for 11 days and go horse riding. I’m borrowing a pony from a friend. She stipulated that she wants it to go fast and be able to jump.

I will be proudly showing her the New Zealand countryside and coast. Having been bought up in the Australian bush it will be a new experience for her to go cantering along Muriwai beach and seeing deer in the forest. We will also take her camping for a few days up North. Another novelty for her is skiing so a visit to Snowplanet will be in order.

Before she arrives I will be enjoying Christmas dinner in New Plymouth with friends and my partner and sister. No doubt my friend River will kill one of her chickens or even a duck for the occasion. There will be fresh produce from her garden. Lunch will be eaten with the backdrop of Mount Taranaki and adjoining farmlands.

Jane Turner, NZ Life & Leisure sub-editor

I don’t go on holiday. I don’t need to. Since I moved from the corporate office to the domestic communications centre (formerly known as the spare bedroom), every day’s a holiday.

No more of that dreaded bumper-to-bumper crawl that passes for Auckland’s rush-hour commute; no more agonising over what to wear every day  (how decadent to go to work in one’s slippers);  no more having to slot housework and supermarket shopping into an overcrowded weekend. I sit at my desk and look out into the garden, watching the birds nicking the not-quite-ripe-enough-to-pick strawberries, and can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

When we stop work for Christmas I shall retire to the veranda, ideally with a stack of novels and a supply of G&Ts to hand. Some of my nearest and dearest from Australia will come to stay at the end of the holidays and maybe we’ll go with them on little excursions around the country, but after a couple of days I know I’ll be anxious to come home.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the best part of a holiday.

Paddy Walker, NZ Life & Leisure editorial assistant

‘Where’s Moko?’ is the question that drives my partner Brett crazy by the end of our summer holiday. So in case you haven’t guessed I am off to Mahia, the original home of Moko the dolphin, one hour south of Gisborne. It’s a short trip for Brett’s family from Hawkes Bay, yet it’s uninhabited by the Auckland crowds as it is a seven hour drive from the big smoke.

A trip to Mahia usually entails sea fishing, sunbathing (a little bit!), ‘Mahia Special’ cocktails, crayfish galore, and a daily run up the hill by the boat ramp. On my first trip I caught a 15 kilo (ok maybe 10) Groper (Hapuka) and I have been a true fisherman’s wife ever since - except that I refuse to touch the bait, bait my rod or touch the fish!!!

All of this is to follow the family Christmas in Auckland, where no doubt my mother will impress us with an amazing feast. I have never over-eaten at Christmas lunch as it is a family tradition to go for a sea swim, or some form of exercise on Christmas morning!

Greg Roughan, NZ Life & Leisure web editor

Christmas to me is the smell of gorse flowers in the sun, long grass, lounging in the shade . . . so this year I’d like more of that and less planning.

Normally, once family duties are discharged, a group of friends and I get together somewhere for a summer trip. Last year we tramped Abel Tasman; the year before was Great Barrier Island - and it was great, but it always means lots of planning - so this summer will be different.

It’s going to be just me and my friend Mac. We’re going to load up his station-wagon - surfboards on the roof, fishing gear in the back - and drive. He’ll take the wheel - I’ll put my feet on the dash and natter - and we’ll follow our noses into Northland until the roads all turn to gravel and we reach a spot where the yellow smell of gorse comes wafting on the breeze.

The car will crunch to a stop, we’ll turn off the engine - the pink pink pink as it cools fading beneath the sound of crickets and the boom of distant surf - and pitch our tents.

Antonia Joe, NZ Life & Leisure brand manager

My mission these Christmas holidays is to cram in as many things as possible. I’m not really a summer kinda gal (if you’ve seen me, the pale pale white skin is a dead giveaway. Although I swear, I CAN tan!) but I’ve pinky promised, with myself, to make the most of this summer instead of sulking at home while all my friends are jet-setting around the world. I guess I can car-set around our beautiful beaches!

I’m planning on spending time with family in Auckland and Wellington, go to the Boxing Day Races (I’ve never been!) – head up north with a couple of friends and then make my way down to Coromandel. Camping is the plan! I swore never to go camping again as I was forced year after year on family camping/four-wheel drive trips as a child, although strangely, a tingly feeling of excitement/apprehensiveness is slowing flourishing at the bottom of my spine. How I’m going to fit it all in 9 days? Who knows, but I’m certainly going to try!