Monday 3rd November We head North
We packed our bags and waited from Brian and Shelia to arrive and take us back to Mangonui which is about a five hour drive from
We had a mixture of sun and rain in our travels but there was very little traffic on our journey. Just North of Auckland there is springing up a new town mostly for the Chinese immigrants. It’s a very large area that is likely to expand as the immigration is still quite high.
A friend of Brian and Shelia was celebrating her birthday and so we were invited along and we had some ‘bubbly’ at Valda’s house before dinner at The Galley restaurant where we enjoyed a nice evening with excellent food.
So a tired couple of
Tuesday 4th November- It’s shopping day
We walked around Mangonui for a while this morning whilst Shelia worked in the Library and we had coffee before heading off for Kaitaia for some shopping.
This seems like quite a busy little town and we had a brief lunch and went in to Pak’n’Save Supermarket. It’s a bit cheap and cheerful and very much like Quicksave we had in the UK with most of the products left in cartons and it looks a bit messy. We have used this chain of supermarkets before but prefer New World Supermarket chain which is very much like a Waitrose quality supermarket. Mangonui has only a few shops and so for main shopping you go to Kaitaia which is about 30 minutes away and/or Kerikeri which is about one hour away.
Our visit to both these towns was brief and so over the next week or so we shall re visit these towns. We headed back to Mangonui and visited the local butcher and also the fish man.
Tonight we shall have dinner in the house.
Wednesday 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot
Well its Guy Fawkes day in UK and also here in New Zealand it is celebrated by some. However we decided to have an easy day and try to get over the thirteen hour time change so most of the day we lazed about and did very little. Joanne, our daughter, has told us the new Sofa's have been delivered to Piplin House and one of them has not been assembled correctly, why oh why do people not care about their workmanship?
The weather today was very blowy with quite a bit of rain interspersed with sunny patches but quite relaxing really.
It was Sheila's turn to cook tonight and so after a bottle or two of wine we enjoyed a very pleasant dinner. Tomorrow we are planning a walk and I hope my knee improves as I have been suffering quite a bit with the affects of arthritis and the muscles behind my knee and so I will try to see a Physiotherapist whilst I am here. Lets hope it better tomorrow. Also we are expecting a guest, somebody we met in the Wagamama restaurant over the weekend. She is in the area doing conservation work and by surprise tracked us down and is visiting us tomorrow.
Thursday 6th November- A quiet day
We decided to take it easy again today as Brian and Sheila needed the car to carry out the jobs they needed to do before leaving for their long South American trip. We also watched the US elections on the TV which was good to do and now hopefully the Yanks will stop their infringing on other countries.
It was quite a landslide victory for the Democrats and will teach George Bush a huge lesson we hope. We had dinner together and a nice evening was had by all.
Friday- 7th November- A trip to Kaitaia
The weather was great today and quite warm, We needed some shopping and headed off to Kaitaia to the big supermarket. On the way we stopped at a lovely 'Top 10 Camping site'. Talk about well equipped, if you have only a tent there is a full kitchen which you can use apart from the usual ablutions and if this is an example of how all the sites are that will be great when we go camping in the South island next year.
Kaitaia is a small town but not really attractive to look at and so I did not take any photos, perhaps next time when we have more time to walk around a bit more. Tonight our host's are having a farewell party with some of their friends and so the shopping needed to be back early so that all food preparations could be made.
It was a very nice evening and we met some nice couples, one couple Robin and Lorraine we have met before, he used to be a production controller in Thames TV and a very interesting guy to talk to.
A latish night and perhaps too much of the New Zealand wine was consumed but they had a good send off.
The house is now ours for the next three months and we can now start travelling around a bit. We have to take Brian and Shelia to a friend tomorrow who will drive them to Auckland Airport for their flight.
We are staying in their house, see details as per following link
http://www.professionals.co.nz/MGI10538/Since we wrote our Hong Kong visit report The Hong Kong Club has opened its new website. For those of you interested please see following link
http://www.thehongkongclub.hk/index.html
Saturday 8th November- Brian & Sheila leave for Latin America
An early start as Brian & Shelia were leaving today and so we drove them to meet their friend who would take them to
There were a few bottles left over from last night and also general rubbish which needed to go to the dump, no rubbish collection here in the sticks you know. It’s a small site about five minutes away and very organised even to the point that you sort the different sorts of plastics.
We made a quick shopping trip to the Butchers and purchased two lovely steaks for tomorrow nights dinner. Lunch was the left-over from the party of pizza and desert which was just right.
Following a brief rest we took a walk down to Cable Bay named because there used to be a Cable Station here connecting New Zealand with Queensland in Australia but now they have a new one from Auckland to Sydney and so the old station is gone.
It was a little windy but there were only a few people on the beach and we had an ice cream and walked home.
Dinner tonight was the ‘Snapper’ we had purchased from the local fish man and it was absolutely great, not too cheap, but good.
We ate most of our dinner on the balcony until a small rain shower came in and it cooled a little but not very cold like
We have decided to go to Kerikeri tomorrow to see the town and also the farmers market which is understood to be very good.
It's voting day today in New Zealand and the butcher asked us if we had voted yet, we of course told him we could not as we are just visiting but he was not too interested and was unsure what time it closed or where to go to vote. It's missing some of the American razzamatazz.
