"Fun" New Zealand pictures...

(She is a real live person)

Monday March 1 - Time to go home...

With Mount Maunganui in our rear view mirror, thoughts turned to packing and wondering if we were going to be able to get everything in our suitcases! It's amazing how much you can acquire in two months!

We ended up leaving some things at Peter and Bryan's for next year, and we did get everything into our luggage, although we came home with more than we left with! How does that happen? Oh, that's right - I buy stuff!

But worse than packing was wondering if we were going to get on the flight, and having to put on long pants and the clothes that we were going to need to be wearing when we got to San Francisco. It was much too hot for long sleeves!

Richard had graciously offered to take us to Auckland to the airport, and John rode along, so we all headed off, with all of our bags. On our way to Richards, we stopped in briefly to say good-bye to Zoe, who is all settled in her new little retirement unit, which is literally around the corner from Peter and Bryan. We are looking forward to seeing lots more of her next year.

Fingers crossed, we got in line at Air New Zealand. It was miraculous, but they took our luggage and gave us seat assignments!! Not together, mind you, so we were going to have to sleep with strangers, but we were ON!!

We were checked in early enough to go upstairs with John and Richard for a farewell beer. Craig and Stephen came out to see us off, and Deane did as well, so we had quite a send off as we went through security. That was really a nice feeling, and so nice of everyone to do that!

Oh, yes - security! Ok, so we did the normal security thing - liquids, computers out, but shoes weren't required to come off. Then through the x-ray machine, where I got wanded. But, as we headed to the gate, we encountered a second security check point - and this one was much more thorough! Everyone got patted down, shoes came off and were examined, all carry-on was opened and examined thoroughly! Apparently no one on our flight was hiding anything in their underwear!

Due to the extra thorough security, required by the US, we didn't have much time at the gate to wait to board the flight. We had just gotten there when we were being paged - uh oh! When you are traveling stand-by, that's usually not a good thing. But, they had changed our seat assignments and put us together! That was a wonderful surprise, and we enjoyed flying back together.

It was an uneventful flight, just the way we like them. It was also a long flight, and neither of us slept well. Penny, bless her heart, picked us up at the airport with our car. We went back to her house for a much needed cup of coffee before heading off to Costco, as our cupboards were bare!

Our wonderful time in New Zealand came to an end for this year. But we are looking forward to visits from Bryan and Peter and perhaps John, later this year. And, we had a visit from two of our grandchildren, Nathan and Hailey, to look forward to.

We have about a million pictures and incredibly wonderful memories that we will cherish always. Thanks to all of our amazing friends in New Zealand for making that possible!


Zoe, in her new, happy home.

Mount Maunganui - Our last hurrah...

For our last week in New Zealand, we rented a large vacation home in Mt. Maunganui, and invited all of our New Zealand friends to come and be our guests, as we have been their guests for these many years! Mt. Maunganui is just beautiful - it's a peninsula on the Bay of Plenty with long, sandy beaches on the ocean side, and a harbor deep enough for cruise ships to dock on the harbor side. Think Hawaii - without millions of people!

We had the house from Tuesday to Monday, and almost everyone was able to make it for at least a part of the time.

We returned from Napier on Monday, and on Tuesday John collected us (yet again!) and drove us to Mt. Maunganui to get the keys to the house and check in. After meeting Coralie and getting the keys, we headed off to the grocery store to provision for the week. We had a menu and a grocery list all ready, so it didn't take long. Then it was back to the house, carry all the groceries upstairs and put them away, and wait for our first guests to arrive!

First to arrive on Tuesday was John's sister, Billie. Shortly thereafter, Stephen and Craig arrived from Auckland, and Stephen's Mum, Agnes was with them. There were 7 of us for dinner on Tuesday night. It was also Stephen's birthday, and we celebrated with cake and champagne, and lots of toasts to Stephen.

Jo and Richard arrived on Wednesday, and then we were 9. Due to a prior commitment, Jo had to go home on Thursday and Craig and Stephen headed off to Craig's brother's batch further down the east coast. We were down to 5, but Billie's son, Marc, who lives in the area came for a visit, and stayed for dinner.

On Friday, Bryan, Peter, Jo, Dianne, Adrian, Chris and Geoff all arrived after work. We had a wonderful houseful! Friday was Chris and Geoff's 16th wedding anniversary, so we had dessert and champagne after dinner for them, and it was great to be able to share in the celebrations.

The weather was fabulous all week, and everyone took advantage of it to go to the beach, for long walks, visit the shops, swim in the hot pools, soak in the hot tub in the back yard and just generally blob! We were able to eat outside all but one night, and the bar-b-que got a good workout!

On Saturday night we all walked around Mt. Maunganui and found a vantage point to watch the Princess cruise ship sail through the bay and out to sea. It's a pretty narrow channel and they sail at high tide, so we were all there to wave them on and collectively wish that we were on board!

Sunday everyone headed home, at various times during the day, and soon it was just John, Lee and I. But Craig and Stephen stopped in and had dinner with us on their way back to Auckland, so that made the house seem less empty and sad.

It was so much fun to just hang out with everyone. It was like all of us being on vacation - no one felt the need to do anything but just relax and enjoy.

But, all good things come to an end, and Monday found us packing up and heading back to Hamilton (thank you, John!), to get packed and head off to the airport to hopefully get on a 7:30 pm flight to San Francisco. The flights were looking good, so we were cautiously optimistic!
Good bye, Mt. Maunganui - see you next year!

This picture doesn't really show how big the house is, but it's a tri-level with 6 bedrooms - sleeps 12!

Looking across the bay to Tauranga, from the walk around Mt. Maunganui

Looking out to sea! The track around the Mount is 4.3 km's, so it's a nice little walk, with spectacular scenery!

Richard and John, taking a break on the walk.

Some of the rocks around the Mount. The water is amazingly clear there.

This is one of my favorite places on the Mount! That beach isn't covered with sand - it's covered with millions and millions of sea shells! You are literally walking on them! It's a beach comber's paradise!

Happy Anniversary, Chris and Geoff!

Opening cards.

Richard and John, enjoying their afternoon G&T! Note their fancy hats!

Here we all are - heading around the Mount so that we can watch the cruise ship in the background sail. Another beautiful day!

The Princess cruise ship

Our viewing spot!

Peter, Chris and Geoff, waiting for the ship.

Here she comes! As you can see, there were quite a few people doing the same thing that we were!

Isn't she beautiful?? Don't you wish you were on board?? We did!

Waving to all of the passengers on deck who were waving to us!

Our chef! Lee was bar-b-qing our steaks. Due to watching the ship sail, we were eating dinner at an hour that would have been appropriate in Spain! The good news is that everyone was starving, so everything was delicious!! : )

G & T's around the picnic table.

Rub-a-dub-dub, three people in the tub!

Ok, how many people CAN we get in here? There are 8 in this picture, but Lee got in, and Richard, who took this picture also got in! Needless to say, the water level rose dramatically and we had waterfalls all around the hot tub! But it was a blast, and a great way to end our last night with everyone at Mt. Maunganui.

This is before Lee and Richard climbed in as well - you can see that the water is right up to the top - what fun!!

Cape Kidnappers and the Gannets

On Sunday we went to a local craft fair and they had a coin-operated tractor. Leo's mom held him on the tractor while I put in the coin - you should have seen the look on his face when it started up! He thought that was pretty cool!



After the craft fair we all went back to Steve and Marianne's for a big bar-b-que lunch before we headed off to Cape Kidnappers for a trip to the Gannet colony. Steve fixed chicken, steak and burgers and we had lots of wonderful side dishes, too. After that, we NEEDED to go get some exercise, and the gannet trip was the perfect way to do it.



Cape Kidnappers (named by Captain Cook, as this is where an attempted but unsuccessful kidnapping on his ship happened) is close to Clive.



The trip to the gannet colony is on trailers pulled by tractors, at low tide, along the beach, and frequently in the water! The tractors and trailers drive over all kinds of terrain, even really large rocks, and when they shout the "hold on!" order, they mean it! The trip out on the tractor was a blast!



We drove past some amazing geology, including clearly visible fault lines and the shifting of the earth, as well as beautiful ocean scenes, and gannet nests.



When we got to the end of the beach, we were able to hike up to the topmost gannet colony and the light house. It was quite a hike - a series of switchbacks - but we were all determined to make the trip, and we all did! The view from the top was amazing!! The gannets were amazing!!



The tractor trip was a BLAST!! We highly recommend this trip to anyone who visits the Napier area!

Leo on the tractor! Isn't he adorable? He and Nick would have had so much fun!

The tractor and trailer, heading along the beach

More tractor scenes

If you make this picture bigger, you will see that one of the tractors is in the water, near the large rock. Yes, we got wet! But just a little. : )

Some of the sea cliffs along the beach

Here's one of the fault lines

More cliffs, along with some erosion

Another shot of the cliff side

In this shot of the fault line, you can see how much the land mass shifted.

Climbing up to the lighthouse and big gannet colony!

Climbing higher.....

And higher still!

And at the top!! Billie and Jo, taking pictures of the gannets! There were hundreds of them, along with fuzzy chicks. They are quite large birds, with a huge wingspan.

You can see some of the chicks in these shots.

More gannet parents and babies. Gannets mate for life, and share in the chick-rearing duties.

Coming in for a landing!

There was another colony on the flat area of these rocks.

Gannet chicks learn to fly at 4 or 5 months. On their maiden flight, they fly straight across the Tasman sea to eastern Australia where they remain until they are 4 or 5 years old, and ready to mate. At that point, they fly back to Cape Kidnappers, choose a mate and make a nest and never leave again! It would be a hoot to be in Australia when the chicks fly in!

Billie and Jo on the trail down - which was much easier than the trail up!

And here we all are, safely back at the tractor, ready to bounce our way back! What a fabulous experience!! As you can see, it was another beautiful day - and this was about 6:30 pm