Trip Blog from 11 November – 27 November 2013

Hello from Murrays Bay, Auckland, New Zealand and our first morning with stunning weather.   John, Mom and I decided to take a walk along the boardwalk into the village of Meirangi Bay.   The coves around this area are very sheltered so the waves are small and the sea is calm and quiet.  However when they do experience a Spring tide or high winds, the boardwalk can be covered, so is not available to be used…we need to watch the tide table for this.  The boardwalk has sea on one side and cliff on the other.  The cliff is home to seagulls that make their nest in the soft crevices of the cliff.  The village has a small ‘Countdown’, which is the equivalent of ‘Spar’ in South Africa, a hairdresser, chemist, bank, many coffee shops 🙂 and a few gift/curio shops plus of course the local ‘estate agency’.  So just about all one needs.   Mom, is able to reach the centre either walking or taking a bus which she doesn’t pay for now that she qualifies for ‘Senior Citizen’ status…how amazing is that!

Peter and Norma’s home is one of three homes that have been built on a sub-division.  Most of the suburbs in Auckland have trees that give privacy between houses, bearing in mind there is limited space here, not like SA where the homes are spread out.  There are ‘lifestyle blocks’ much like small farms that exist outside of the city, but these are not favoured by the residents who have to travel into the city or burbs for work..even tho’ there is a good bus system.

John and I also took a drive ‘outside’ of the city, into the country called ‘Dairy Flats’, beautiful countryside, lots of sheep, cows,horses, etc.  Reminded me alot of Ireland and England countryside.

Peter and Norma took us for a drive on the Wednesday night to Missions Bay where Gillie and Pen live with their respective partners.  The motive besides visiting our nieces was to go for 10 Dollar curry at one of Pete’s local curry joints….and boy was it delicious…shoo’ some of the curry John and Peter ordered was as ‘hot as hell’. (in Peter’s words LOL).

On our first Friday, Sydney whom some of you might remember from Hout Bay, Cape Town… his partner Craig used to work with Dr Effting at Hout Bay Dental Studio, picked John and I up at the house and took us for a morning drive through the centre of Auckland and along the coast, giving us a history of Auckland (shoo’ Syd you are very knowledgeable).  We finished off our morning with an ice cream.  Thanks for spoiling us.  We will meet again with Craig and Sydney at a later stage on our stay.

The weekend was jam packed.  Peter has quite a few cousins and an Aunt who live in Auckland so Norma arranged for us to meet them all.  We had a picnic on a beach close to Milford where Mark, Lee and little Zac live.  Lawrence, Jen and baby Shane also joined us, even though they are busy unpacking their boxes and settling into their new home…thanks for making a huge effort guys!

Beautiful weather, good company and good food, made for an awesome day.

Sunday evening was packing again… John and I heading out from Auckland to New Zealand, taking the long route up West.  Our motive is to spend a night or two with Geordi, Luiza and Dino Rigutto, old friends of ours from Sea Glades days who moved to Wellington about 6 years ago.   We left bright and early on Monday morning, thank you Peter for kindly offering your car to us for the week.  The drive was again like an English countryside and surprisingly enough, very little traffic on the way.  We passed through many small and big towns, loads of fields, green and lush with cows, sheep, horses and even some alpacas.

Our first nights stop was in Whanganui…. easy to find accommodation… NO…what a surprise as we thought we could just stopover and we would have no problem finding accommodation…after many phone calls and pricing, we found accommodation at a Motel called Raceway.  A nice little motel right opposite the race track…owned by Tony and his family.    We had a room, with bathroom and kitchen..AND…bedding provided…yes have a little laugh…in some of the places we inquired, they asked us if we wanted bedding at an additional cost of 10 Dollars. Bwahahahaha…anyway bottom price with bedding and a reasonable accommodation was 90 dollars for both of us self catering…that is about R900 in SA price :(.

After a good nights sleep, we left early and took a drive through to Wellington.  Luiza and Geordi both work. Dino, newly graduated from Dunedin University is home on his Christmas hols, but had to make a trip into the city centre, so John and I could only really meet them after 5pm, so we took our coffee and sarmies, found the waterfront and made ourselves at home.  We spent a couple of hours soaking up the sun and watching the people as they made their way through the waterfront…some on skates, some on skateboards, others on bicycles, some walking, some jogging, ladies and babies in prams, funny, smiley, cute, odd people from all walks of life.

We arrived at the Riguttos home in Whitby round 6ish after being caught in the Wellington traffic, going home.   It was so amazing to see Luiza again. Geordi and Dino arrived a little later.  Luiza did a super meal for us all, then the chatting and sharing began.   I think Luiza made her way to bed round 11.30pm but Geordi was having none of that…we strolled up the stairs to our beds round 2am, after loads of laughs and good wine.  Poor Geordi had to get up for work in the morning…John and I slept.

The Riguttos wouldn’t hear of us leaving on Wednesday morning…we didn’t need much persuasion to stay an extra night, we were having such fun and hadn’t actually seen much of Wellington city or its surrounds.  So, Wednesday morning, after discussion with Luiza, we headed out to do the ‘touristy’ stuff… museum, art gallery, waterfront again and a drive around the burbs.   We ended our day off with a real Italian pasta c/o  Luiza.  YUM.  Another fairly late night, sharing our travels with the family, then bed as we had an early start next morning, returning back to Auckland again.

We decided to spend a night in Lake Tapou, the most gorgeous little place ever…so many campervans freecamping with dogs and kids.  We stayed at a family run motel…just happened to be Afrikaaners from Transvaal (so we were told) LOL, been in NZ for about 13 years.  Left because of the crime, government etc, etc, etc…we heard so much of that.  The room we had wasn’t as nice as the one we had on the way down….sort of felt a little old and delapidated, but it did the job AND we had bedding provided ROTFL.

We drove back along the East Coast…quite different from the West Coast…more rugged, cliffy and mountainous.   Still very green, lots of animals again.  We stopped off in Rotarua the county of hot springs and redwood forests.   John and I had a walk around the redwood forest and ate our lunch in the shade of these very big and beautiful trees, that somehow made their way to NZ, via USA.

Arriving back in Auckland round early evening, it was a quick laundry and supper.  Norma and Peter had gone off to babysit their little grandie Zac and by the time we got home Mom was in bed, so we also had an early night after a full days travel.

That was the end of our second week in New Zealand….the weekend was ahead of us jampacked again.

We found out early Saturday that there was a Santa Parade in Auckland city, we had been invited by Sydney and Craig to join them.   So, Sunday morning we drove to Devanport for a brunch with Norm, Peter and Mom.  They then dropped us at the ferry which sped us across the channel to Auckland.  We were met by Syd and Craig and whisked away for a coffee, before tramping through the city to the Cinema complex they had booked at later on, for a movie.  We were treated to a splendid view up above the road, away from the maddening crowd…just my cup of tea.  Craig and John got bored with taking pics up above, so they wandered down to see what exciting photos they could snap.  Syd and I stayed just where we were.

The Parade was awesome, so many floats, music, pipers and last of all Father Christmas on his sleigh, the highlight of the day.

John and I took the bus home and were met by Peter at Speakers Pub.  We actually took the wrong bus, but all’s well that ends well LOL.

Into our third week now.  John and I spent Monday at home, catching up emails and blogging, downloading pictures and catching up on news from the week just gone.   Yesterday, we went to see an immigration attorney about the ins and outs, just in case we want to look at immigration,then home last night to a wonderful supper of steak and salad.   Only a week to go, till we are winging our way home, can’t believe it has gone so quickly.

Nick, Tanaelle and the kids leave today round noon bound for Mexico…it has been all systems go the past 6 weeks or so, getting ready for the big day in Mexico.   Hope to see loads of pics of their trip.  Have fun you guys…don’t forget to keep us posted …

That’s all folks till next time….I will blog our last week in Auckland.