Time Flies

Christmas 2013 was history, nothing left but left overs! So of course you have to go to the big swinging town of  Kerikeri to check out the boxing day sales and we walked away with our credit card still in tack.  Then off to visit some of our cruising friends who were docked in Opua.   Tea with Dancing Walrus (Ken and Joni) and then wine on Iolea (Paul and Kate)!  A great way to spend a rainy day.

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

Then we headed to the far north!  We booked into Main Street Lodge, our first BBH hostel.  The room was lovely, the kitchen great.  And the owner gave us great hints for things to do in the south island and places to stay.  We took the Harrison Cape Runner tour which picks you up at your hostel at 9am and headed up to the VERY north of the North Island.  We had a few stops along the way before Cape Reigna, the lighthouse at the top of the island where you can see the rough waters from the meeting of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean plus spectacular views.

 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.