Bowentown and home.

Our last days in New Zealand turned out quite warm so we never needed our warmer clothes! After a lazy morning, we toured the area and were most impressed with the little coves - especially this ANZAC bay.

It was lovely seeing the families enjoying the warm weather with picnics and water activities. The icecream man too was pretty happy with the weather as he’s had the best summer for a while. The whole peninsula was busy and I guess being only 2 hrs from Auckland it’s a popular summer destination. The quiet waters of the Tauranga Harbour make for safe boating activities - much safer than the Pacific Ocean which looks quite spectacular with the black sand!

We ended up enjoying our last lunch at the near by boat club where we could watch the activities at the boat ramp. 

We had an easy pack up on our last day, and headed to the Auckland airport where we dropped the car off and were bussed to the terminal. The process at the airport was smooth, giving us time to enjoy a couple of drinks as we debriefed about the whole trip. We all agreed that the accommodation at each place was excellent - thanks to Anne’s planning, that the places we saw gave us a good overview of the North Island, and that all of our expectations were met. How fortunate we were to travel with good health and excellent weather. We arrived in Melbourne only a few minutes late and had to say a brief farewell as our respective rides were waiting outside the terminal. Now we are home, but  Anne and Greg are still in Melbourne to celebrate Max’s 21st before they head home during the week. We have such wonderful memories and so many photos - we loved New Zealand. ❌❌❌❌ from the travellers. 

Napier and Hawke’s Bay.

We left Wellington a bit reluctantly as we all enjoyed our brief stay there. It was an easy drive north and travelling over the Rimutakata Range provided excellent views. In bygone days, the route over these mountains took days - now luckily it’s pretty easy. The memorial shows the regiment making the crossing in 1915 as they marched to join the WW1 forces. 

We travelled through some beautiful country side and pretty towns. We have loved the beautiful English type trees which enhance these areas. We arrived in Napier and after a bit of driving around, found the information centre to get some ideas of what to do. A cruise ship was in and people everywhere so we were happy to leave Napier and arrive at our accommodation at Havelock North. Once again we had a beautifully appointed new house with all amenities - even a spa! 

We had glorious views from the nearby lookout - a narrow windy road which wasn’t enjoyed by Anne at all! We loved Napier & learned at the museum about the earthquake which hit in 1931 - which changed Napier forever. The sea dropped away and most of the buildings were ruined. However, in a remarkably short time, the city was rebuilt using the Navy and out of work tradesmen during the depression. It was rebuilt in art deco style and today they work hard to maintain this iconic architecture.

The beach here is black sand but the sea front is very pretty with flower displays.

We had a lovely winery lunch in the Esk valley and here we learned about last year’s cyclone Gabrielle, which decimated and flooded the valley. The winery has just reopened and we saw numerous ruined houses along the way. The area has been rezoned and those flooded houses cannout be rebuilt., so it’s sad that the people have to relocate once compensation comes in.  We also deduced that the piles of dirt we saw, was actually silt!

The winery has done remarkably well to operate after less than a year.

From our Havelock North place, we travelled over mountains once again to Taupo and Rotarau. We had planned some activities such as hot springs, waterfall walk and white water rafting watching, but ended up doing none of those as the clouds gathered and we struck rain! So we had a coffee at Taupo and looked around the lake area - which was very busy.

It’s also unusual so see an aeroplane at McDonalds! The rain became steady at Rotarua so we drove around the Government gardens and saw the lake - which is bigger than we remembered.

By chance we found this gorgeous old boutique hotel where we enjoyed a beautiful lunch in quite stunning surroundings.

From here it was a short drive to Tauranga, which we found out is the 5th largest NZ town - and boy oh boy, was it busy! We tried unsuccessfully to find the information centre and then got caught up in traffic! We were bumper to bumper for about 90mins - the worst traffic we've ever witnessed! It was pleasing to see that there was no road rage or angry drivers - maybe they are used to it! So it was with huge relief that we reached our destination - (albeit later than anticipated) and really enjoyed a beer and wine to relax. We’re here at Bowertown for 2 nights, then the holiday is sadly over. I’ll probably do a wind up blog before we leave - until then, love from Anne, Greg,Marg & Darryl  ❌❌❌❌

 

 

Onto Wellington.

Our last night in Auckland was rudely interrupted by sirens, fire engines and loud speaker announcements as the Hilton Hotel opposite us was evacuated when a fire was detected on the first floor! We lost an hours sleep leaning over the balcony watching the goings on … just thankful it wasn’t our apartments! Luckily it wasn’t a huge drama and was under control without much fuss. 

The next morning, we left Narelle to fly home in the afternoon, and we four headed south. We found a very different cafe off the road which provided a much needed coffee and snack. Our next stop was Raglan which is a seaside town, quite busy on this Sunday with families enjoying the summery weather with seaside picnics and activities. It’s unusual for us to witness the black, shiny sea sand, which is common on this western side of NZ.

We detoured to the pretty Bridal Falls  which were approached by a beautiful rain forest walk.

We were a little confused about where to go next as our GPS (we’ve named her Gloria) wasn’t much help! So I was confident I knew the way, and to my delight, (but not everyone’s in the car), we found a dirt road which wound up and down over the hills. We saw beautiful scenery but it was slow driving and we were a little worried we were lost! We were relieved to eventually reach a sealed road and find Kawhia, a predominantly Māori seaside village, where we saw the locals also enjoying the lovely weather. You can clearly see the black sand!!

Keeping in touch with the anniversary celebrations, we detoured to the Waitomo Valley as Anne worked here in her youth, and Greg & Anne honeymooned at the lovely old hotel 50 years ago! Sadly, the hotel is currently closed so we had to undertake a bit of trespassing to have photo opportunities and for Anne to walk down memory lane. 

Our next accommodation out of Te Kuiti, was on a dairy farm so quite a change from the hustle & bustle of city life. The house was beautiful,  set in rolling hills - but being there only one night, we hardly saw a cow!

We awoke Monday morning to rain - just as well we had a driving day planned so it really didn’t interfere with any activities. The rain became very heavy as we travelled south which made conditions unpleasant for the driver, and the low cloud reduced visibility so we missed all of the spectacular snow capped mountains of Mount Ruapehu within the Tongariro National Park. We had a stop at Foxton Beach to have a bit of late lunch before we arrived in Wellington. Today we spent the day exploring the city and feel we have a good feel of this pretty city. The view from the lookout at Mt Victoria gives a fantastic panaromic view - even if the road there was very narrow and windy. We were absolutely blessed to enjoy a glorious sunny day so all the views were spectacular.

We drove around much of  the harbour and found a lovely cafe called the Spruce Goose, where we enjoyed a late lunch. GPS ‘Gloria’ did manage to get us to the Parliament House area, where we also found the beautiful old St Paul's church.

We completed our tour with a ride on the cable car which was a little underwhelming, but gave us more views of the city. 

Tomorrow we once more pack up with the Napier area as our next destination. We can see the end of of trip now as we leave Auckland on Sunday. Not many more blogs! The forecast is for more lovely weather - in hindsight we needed to pack more summer clothes. We aren’t complaining though as we feel we’ve been particularly lucky with the sunny warm days. We trust all readers are enjoying good times and good health. Love from the Taylors and Brays ❌❌❌

Anniversary celebrations and onto Auckland

The anniversary celebrations went off perfectly and we’re sure Anne and Greg will reflect in this time with very fond memories. The family organised for a personal song to be created to the background of a slideshow of Anne and Greg through the years. This was received with much emotion and is a wonderful tribute for them to keep and share. Drinks and photos were held on the beautiful viewing deck before we were fed by the catering couple in our accommodation. 

The evening ended with some dancing to Mr Music Darryl’s  playlist created especially for the occasion. The next day was the actual anniversary, but was a much quieter day! We all travelled a little further north to the very picturesque Whangaroa Harbour which really looks like a huge lake as it’s very sheltered. We all enjoyed a lunch at the bistro there before visiting Coopers Beach where we enjoyed an icecream and I even put my feet in the water as the beach looked so inviting!

Sadly, the Duck family had to leave early Friday morning for their long trek back to Darwin. We also packed up and left the beautiful Te Koha resort to our next accommodation in Auckland. We stopped along the way at Whangarei and really loved the walk around the spectacular falls before lunching at a quaint restaurant on the waters edge in The Basin.

We were fascinated by this mechanical clock - unfortunately the photo doesn’t do it justice as we could have watched it for ages. However, we had to push on and once more found the Highway 1 very busy - but with lovely scenery and the agapanthus. 

It was a bit tricky getting to our apartment on the wharf, as the key had to be picked up and complicated directions we’re given to access the car park - but we managed it and were delighted with what we found! Anne’s research paid off again and we have lovely views of the harbour and are very lucky to be on the water front where there is an abundance of places to enjoy a drink or two and a meal. 

We took the ferry across the bay to Devonport (not in Tasmania) and found it to be a very trendy popular tourist destination. It wasn’t hard to find a spot for a bite of lunch and beverage, before heading back to our area. We had to have a drink at ‘Andrew Andrew’ and at the Hilton which is opposite us, before Andrew had to leave us to fly home to Brisbane.

Whilst at the Hilton we saw snippets of a lavish Indian wedding and wish we had video of the groom arriving to the beat of a drum and much dancing and singing - and the bride being escorted by a flower pagoda  carried by 4 men. Now we are on our last night in Auckland - Narelle flies back to Melbourne tomorrow and we 4 will head south to see more of this lovely country. We can’t believe how fortunate we’ve been with the weather as every day has been perfect! We hope this continues. We trust all readers are well and send our love to everyone. ❌❌❌