Captain Bruce |
Cheryl and Bruce received a day trip on the R Tucker
Thomspon tall ship for Christmas from Santa okay it was Karen. We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny day
for the trip. Cheryl got to helm most of
the way out, she was happy! Karen and
Cheryl climbed the rigging and Karen climbed out on the bow sprit to take pictures. Lunch was delightful, so to were the scones
with cream and jam at the beginning of the passage! All three of us had smiles on our faces, it
was a good day. Thanks Santa.
A New Figurehead |
The view from the crows nest |
What else is in the neighbourhood? Rainbow waterfalls is an hour walk from the
oldest stone building in New Zealand, so we went to the stone building, which
has been dressed up as old general store.
Then a beautiful walk along the river to rainbow falls. We were standing at the bottom, wondering why
it was called Rainbow falls, then we trudged to the top and looked down we
figured it out!
Rainbow Falls |
Next we went tobogganing yup on sand dunes at the start of 90 miles
beach.
The climb up in a word was HARDWORK!!
Karen did it 3 times, Cheryl twice and Bruce once. The options were to go down on a plastic toboggan
or a boogie board. The boogie board is supposed
to be faster, I don’t know, we all seemed to do well on whatever we went down
on.
Look out below!!!! |
It is amazing the places sand can
get into! We then drove (or Simon our
bus driver) drove down 90 mile beach, which is actually only 70
kilometers. But it was amazing. We stopped to pick Piu Piu, which are small
clams. It was easy to pick them up, they
were everywhere. We got back around
5:30. So dinner that night was the
clams, cooked on the barbeque, with butter and garlic to dip them in. They need a little more time to get all of
the sand out of them but the sand just helped with digestion, right!
Next day we packed and headed to the gum diggers park. The sap from the Kauri trees was kept soft in
the swamps of the north and the gum was ‘mined’. The gum was used for varnish but with
synthetic varnish now, gum digging is no longer. It was a very hard life. The exhibit was great. And yes that is where the name gum boots came
from the guys wore boots up to almost their hips and dug in the swamp for Kauri
gum.
Gum Diigger's home away from home |
We booked a place in Whangarei, called Little Earth, by the
Abbey Caves. We meet up with Enchantment
for ice cream in Whangerei, then headed onto the Lodge. It was lovely. The next day we hiked to the caves and went
into 2, or Cheryl and Karen went into 2.
They were a bit difficult to get into and out and you wade through cold
water ankle deep, but fun. A totally
different experience from Waitomo as it was just us in the caves looking at a
few glow worms. We also hiked to the waterfalls in the nearby reserve, called Whangarei
Falls! This included a walk in the
clouds, where a pathway has been built so you walk at the top of the tree
canapy.
The next day we went back to Opua as they were having a tall
ship regatta. We went out with Dancing
Walrus on their boat and ended up, by accident, having a perfect anchor spot at
the end of the finish line. Ken said he
planned it that way! To see “The Pride of
New Zealand” as she rounded the corner under full sail will stay in our minds
for a long time. (It was also an
opportunity to ask Ken all sorts of questions on fiberglass reinforced
plastics, as we are replacing our through hull fittings and seacocks and this
is what the new ones will be made of.)
We were also lucky enough to catch up with State of Mind (Rod and
Brenda) at Opua. Yes we asked Rod about
through hull fittings too! But we also
had the chance to catch up.
Then it was back to Auckland as Bruce is leaving in a few
days and we needed to do the things we missed the first time! We went up Mount Eden, it was good to have
done it this late in the trip as you have seen it from other places so it makes
sense. We stayed at the Waldorf Tetra
again, it was easy! We went to the zoo,
but believe it or not, we did not see a Kiwi, the main purpose of the
trip. We went for a walk one day to the
waterfront. Bruce went to a movie and
Karen and Cheryl indulged in a ½ hour massage.
We went visiting Somerset (Carol and Jim), which then became going out
to dinner. We decided to restaurant
hop: we started at an Indian place and
had an excellent appetizer platter, then onto a Thai place where we shared
several dishes. Good food and great
company. Next day went up one tree hill
and walked around it’s park before we went to the Sky Tower for an amazing
lunch and fantastic view of Auckland.
The food was top drawer and when you consider the costs to get up the
tower it was very reasonable.
The time had passed very quickly; it was now time for Bruce
to head back to Canada. We saw Bruce
checked in, had a coffee, last hugs and we headed back to Jacqueline’s in South
Auckland.
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