Goodbye New Zealand

As my last blog post said, I arrived back home in Thames on Saturday, 28 March. That means I have been home for pretty much a month! Yes, it took me that long to finish writing up and picking pictures about my south island excursion! You would think I would have had gotten more done, but people really don’t realize how busy the life of an unemployed person is! I mean, first – you loose a bit of your day just from sleeping. Sure, I sometimes get up shortly after Dave leaves at 7:15am; but sometimes a good rest until 10 is needed! And then there’s all the facebooking to do; pictures to look at, quizzes to take, and the occasional comment to write on someone’s status. I’ve been boring lately, but generally running around with a string tied to me for the cats to chase takes up another good hour or so. Then there is e-mail, not that I really get that much; most of it is telling me about Facebook (FB) comments anyway. So, that starts the cycle all over again ;-) Ha hahaha.

So, yeah. I’ve been enjoying being a slacker. I do the laundry sometimes and generally clean up the house once a week. Sometimes I make cookies too! I even surprised Dave at lunch with a whole plate of fresh baked Afghans. Delicious!!! I don’t feel guilty in the least about my laziness, though. If I was staying in town I definitely would have been looking for a job, but since I’m leaving in May it seems a bit pointless! Yes, I really should have looked into volunteering with DoC (department of conservation), but it’s a bit late for that too – since my departure date is less than 1 week away now!!!!!! That’s right - 1 week and I hop the ditch for OZ! I can pretty much guarantee that this will be my last blog from NZ….. Well, for the next 3 – 12 months (but I’ll address that at the end).

However, in hasn’t ALL been cat playing and slackerdom around the house. Dave and I have gotten out and about for a few excursions….. here are the LAST EXPLORATIONS OF NEW ZEALAND IN 2009:

On Saturday, 5 April (1 week after arriving home) Dave and I met up with Karen and Colin (the friends I met through couch surfing in Whangarei). The last time they appeared in my blog mom and I were staying a night with them in Whangarei: they took us out to the ocean and KAREN had made a homemade birthday cake, as well as a quiche for dinner. They were passing through my neck of the woods this time; on a 2 week tour of the East Cape on their way to a VW show in Napier the next weekend. Dave and I met up with them in Thames, where we picked up some beer and sausages and headed to Athenree hot pool. Colin had hoped for some good entertainment while Dave and I set up our tent (they were sleeping in their van), but it’s a small tent that is super easy and fast to set up. I don’t think he even got settled in his chair before the fly was secured!

I had the cell number of the couple I had met in September and they let me know about a concert/benefit that was happening. We were all pretty stoked to go – until we sat in the hot pools to long! Dave was slightly disappointed not to see some music and get out, but he also had a really good time just kicking back and chilling with beers and a BBQ; having a good conversation and getting to know Karen and Colin. We spent the next day on a couple short walks. One took us to the top of Bowentown Head – looking out towards Tauranga, where Mount Maunganui could be seen. The second walk, from Waihi Beach was longer, but more shaded. Before saying our goodbyes, we all had an ice cream cone at the beach….. mmmm, ice cream! Dave and I headed back to Thames, with a stop at the gold mine of Waihi (with a big dump truck display) while Karen and Colin headed towards the Mount and beyond.

EASTER WEEKEND

The next weekend was Easter weekend! Since Easter is taken pretty seriously here, this meant that Dave had a 4 day weekend!!! We left Thames on Friday, 10 April and headed to Tauranga, stopping at McLaren Falls on our way. It turned out to be a good thing we had stocked on beer the night before; Matt and Mel – the friends we were staying with – had forgotten that EVERYTHING is closed on Good Friday. Well, not everything – just the grocery stores, liquor stores, and most every other shop – gas stations and corner stores selling “necessities” were open. As were a few stores (garden supplies and music) that were willing to pay the $1000 fine for being open – well worth it from the crowds we saw on the news. We could have bought beers in the town pubs, but we would have had to order food and pay a 15% service charge. Instead, we headed home and had a good catch up before buying pizza for dinner (yep, the pizza store was open too – the only thing in the strip mall across the street).

Dave and slept well on the air mattress we borrowed from his parents. We were hardly disturbed when Matt got up at 4 and made coffee before heading off to work. Dave and I got up significantly later, only to sit back in bed with our bowls of muesli and watch cartoons! It was LOVELY. Eventually, Mel (not short of Melanie!) got up and we had a bit of a visit before packing up and heading towards the Mahia Peninsula. In Rotorua Dave drove us to a lakeside park his dad used to launch their boat from. We had lunch in the sun (with a chilly breeze) before hitting town for some gelato. Dave and I always hit this gelato shop when we pass near Rotorua – ever since we found it in our first meet up in Rotura (back in September; when Bobbie, Rachel and I went zorbing). After licking our fingers clean we continued on. Dave drove the ….kms of windy, gravel road through the beautiful Te Urewera National Park. The bush covered ridges just seemed to continue forever! I felt a bit bad about letting Dave drive the last part of the road – past Lake Waikaremoana – but we wanted to meet up with my friend Tracey before it got too late. Plus, Dave reckons his peripheral vision is so good that he saw plenty of the lake as we went tearing past – leaving a cloud of dust in our wake. We arrived at the Sunset Pub before dark, but by the time we had dinner and a beer (while watching rugby) it was well into night. Dave and I found Tracey’s paddock gate easy enough and followed the obvious drive of flattened grass to the site of her pop up camper. We started setting up our tent, with headlights to help, while Tracey picked up Fred – her little dog. Soon, we all found ourselves freezing our toes off while we had a yak in the moonlight and drank the beer Dave and I picked up at the bustling Tauranga grocery store.

While the night had been cold, the sun quickly warmed us the next morning. Dave and I had breakfast and entertained ourselves until Tracey got up. I can’t convey the excitement she had when she found out that I could boil water! This meant that there could be coffee!!! After a couple cups we all had a wander around the paddock; Tracey and Fred (dog) leading, Dave and I following with our cameras, and George (potbelly pig; heaps bigger than last time I saw her!). After a full round of the property, including the secret crop of watercress, Tracey retired to her camper while Dave and I drove up the coast. We took the road to near the end, getting off the gravel at the first beach access (the road looked to be inland paddock afterwards). We enjoyed the blue sky and waves while we had our Cadbury eggs – to celebrate Easter (we had brought two for Tracey too, but she’s not a fan of chocolate!). The beach on the end bit of the road was sandy, but we stopped just outside of Mahia to enjoy the flat bedrock reaching out into the ocean – I just love those kind of beaches! We also had a stop at the Mahia Beach beach (ha ha). We watched slowly lower in the sky, shining through puffy cloud trails. When we returned to the paddock, we all drove back to the sunset pub for dinner. Luckily we had planned on eating, since food had to be ordered by each person that wanted to drink a beer: It was Easter afterall! Unfortunately, you had to order food from the pub, not from the takeaway next door – as one guy found as he waited indoors out of the cold.

The next morning, the sun again started warming the chill out of the air as soon as it rose above the paddock brush. Tracey and I had a cup of coffee and then we said our goodbyes. Dave was quite glad we had opted to avoid the …. Km unpaved road through Te Urewera national park. It meant we didn’t get to stop at Lake Waikaremoana, but it did mean that Dave was able to drive quickly on a fun curvaceous road! We didn’t make any stops worth note on the way home; we wanted to get home in time to do the grocery shopping, unpack, and make dinner without being rushed. I did snap a few pictures of Mount Edgecombe on our way past; it’s perfect cone shape allows anyone to spot it for the volcano it is.

Other Life

Those were our two major excursions out of town. Both trips were new to Dave; he hadn’t walked the Waihi Beach trail and hadn’t been anywhere near the Mahia Peninsula before. So that was interesting for him. He really enjoyed meeting my friends too. Karen and Colin stopped in the next weekend (after Easter) on their way back home. I was worried they wouldn’t want to stop too long, since Dave was going to be involved in watching the Hamilton 400 (V8 street car racing). So I couldn’t help but laugh when I found out Colin had been quite anxious to get to Thames so he could watch the cars too! Ha ha, Karen and I sat in the kitchen and chatted while the boys watched their cars do laps. I was quite pleased when they decided to stay the night on Dave’s fold out couch, since Dave and I would like to host couchsurfers when I return from New Zealand….. Oh – have I not mentioned that part of the plan!? Ha ha ha…. Well, that will have to wait. As of this moment, I am 6 hours away from flying out of the country; I just don’t have time to write much more……

Good bye New Zealand, it’s been really, really fun!

(P.S….. not time to proof read….. sorry for any grammatical inconsistencies, hope you can work out my meanings anyway! :)