Having a Mooch & Look see (with a suprise thrown in !!)
So it's been a while since I've had a chance to write anything, so a bit of catching up to do.
Rose and I took off with Helen's car to do some sight seeing around the area north of Auckland. Starting along the east coast and heading up toward 90 mile beach. One thing to remember over here is that WH in a name is pronounced F (next week we're going to WHakatana!!) and does that make it FSmiths instead of Wh Smiths???
There is some really beautiful scenery and lots of it, with a speed limit of 60mph (100kph) you get time to have a look around as you go. And the natives seem friendly enough. Most requested drink is a flat white (frothy coffee) at about 80p a go it seems churlish not to really. And the favourite food are pies. Every town has it's own bakery and they all fresh cook pies each day, but I still can't get my head around steak and cheese, although it doesn't taste quite as bad as it sounds.
Anyway loads more places to see with the occasional overnight at about $80 - 100 including breakfast for us both. Currently we're working on $2.50 to the pound. Best place we found was the Bay of Islands where we hopped a ferry to the tourist trap of Russell, highly appropriate since we're staying with the Russels anyway.
A quick turn round the top of the island at 90 mile beach, which is actually about 57kms but is size really that important? Rose managed to disturb a bee out for a swim and stood on it, the bee's response was predictable, but despite my offer to pee on her foot (or is that jellyfish stings?) a wade through salty water seems to have taken care of it. We took some posed photos of the speed limit sign as you go onto the beach , 100km, which seemed odd, and the rather rusty Nissan parked at the low water mark. This serves to remind people that the sand isn't as firm as it may seem.
From there back down the west coast and through the Waipoua Forest where there are some massivley impressive trees called Kauri. Tese things have to be seen to be believed. 30m+ around the trunk and almost the same distance to the first branch, dead straight. Apparently they are a type of pine but mightily impressive. So we felt we had to look into the Kauri museum on the way down. A lot of these trees were felled for the timber trade at the turn of the century but they are now protected unless it's licensed felling, so they've set up a museum based on the logging industry. The more expensive Kauri is taken from the swamps where they fell several hundred/thousand years ago. The trees are recovered, kiln dried and then used for furniture, including a 4 person hot tub built for a japanese company.
So there we are strolling across the car park 13000 miles from home when a young lady approaches us and says hello, which would normally be a tad odd, except it was Kelly who was one of Sam's bridesmaids 2 years ago!!!!. She took VR from Zurich in Swindon, sold up and has been touring the globe ever since so it is a small world after all.
So from there a steady mooch back to Auckland for Thurs evening and our main souvenier? A$40 parking ticket for parking facing the wrong way in a two-way street. (We might tell Helen about it before we leave)
Last Friday Kevin, Paul son from home who works for Sounds music shops as a director? tok me off to play a round of golf at The Grove, which is the normal home to the NZ Open. Not a long course but one you had to think about a bit, I managed to go round in 93 scoring 33 stableford points which I was very pleased with, sorry, chuffed to bits really.
The weekend spent pottering and a day out on the boat, we caught loads of small fry about 6inches long but not leagl to keep for the pot and I got one large snapper, which when lightly cooked in butter was lovely!!
Barbie and beers at Helen's sister's last night and now busy packing for a tour of the South of the North, if that makes sense, so hopefully add some more next weekend when Dave will be away for 2 days fishing the NZ National finals (some thins will never change)
laters
M
09.30 08/11/04 NZ (23C !!!!!!!!) bloody hot!!
Rose and I took off with Helen's car to do some sight seeing around the area north of Auckland. Starting along the east coast and heading up toward 90 mile beach. One thing to remember over here is that WH in a name is pronounced F (next week we're going to WHakatana!!) and does that make it FSmiths instead of Wh Smiths???
There is some really beautiful scenery and lots of it, with a speed limit of 60mph (100kph) you get time to have a look around as you go. And the natives seem friendly enough. Most requested drink is a flat white (frothy coffee) at about 80p a go it seems churlish not to really. And the favourite food are pies. Every town has it's own bakery and they all fresh cook pies each day, but I still can't get my head around steak and cheese, although it doesn't taste quite as bad as it sounds.
Anyway loads more places to see with the occasional overnight at about $80 - 100 including breakfast for us both. Currently we're working on $2.50 to the pound. Best place we found was the Bay of Islands where we hopped a ferry to the tourist trap of Russell, highly appropriate since we're staying with the Russels anyway.
A quick turn round the top of the island at 90 mile beach, which is actually about 57kms but is size really that important? Rose managed to disturb a bee out for a swim and stood on it, the bee's response was predictable, but despite my offer to pee on her foot (or is that jellyfish stings?) a wade through salty water seems to have taken care of it. We took some posed photos of the speed limit sign as you go onto the beach , 100km, which seemed odd, and the rather rusty Nissan parked at the low water mark. This serves to remind people that the sand isn't as firm as it may seem.
From there back down the west coast and through the Waipoua Forest where there are some massivley impressive trees called Kauri. Tese things have to be seen to be believed. 30m+ around the trunk and almost the same distance to the first branch, dead straight. Apparently they are a type of pine but mightily impressive. So we felt we had to look into the Kauri museum on the way down. A lot of these trees were felled for the timber trade at the turn of the century but they are now protected unless it's licensed felling, so they've set up a museum based on the logging industry. The more expensive Kauri is taken from the swamps where they fell several hundred/thousand years ago. The trees are recovered, kiln dried and then used for furniture, including a 4 person hot tub built for a japanese company.
So there we are strolling across the car park 13000 miles from home when a young lady approaches us and says hello, which would normally be a tad odd, except it was Kelly who was one of Sam's bridesmaids 2 years ago!!!!. She took VR from Zurich in Swindon, sold up and has been touring the globe ever since so it is a small world after all.
So from there a steady mooch back to Auckland for Thurs evening and our main souvenier? A$40 parking ticket for parking facing the wrong way in a two-way street. (We might tell Helen about it before we leave)
Last Friday Kevin, Paul son from home who works for Sounds music shops as a director? tok me off to play a round of golf at The Grove, which is the normal home to the NZ Open. Not a long course but one you had to think about a bit, I managed to go round in 93 scoring 33 stableford points which I was very pleased with, sorry, chuffed to bits really.
The weekend spent pottering and a day out on the boat, we caught loads of small fry about 6inches long but not leagl to keep for the pot and I got one large snapper, which when lightly cooked in butter was lovely!!
Barbie and beers at Helen's sister's last night and now busy packing for a tour of the South of the North, if that makes sense, so hopefully add some more next weekend when Dave will be away for 2 days fishing the NZ National finals (some thins will never change)
laters
M
09.30 08/11/04 NZ (23C !!!!!!!!) bloody hot!!
posted by Martin the BOF at 7:54 pm
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