Hello! I' m back!

Hi everyone!

Well, it's a rainy Sunday and therefore, I've had to stay in and can finally catch up with youse all...

Here are some fabbie photos first of all from the past few weekends.

The first lot are from the weekend Kev and I decided to explore just beyond the North Shore - the areas of Whangaparoa, Gulf Harbour and Orewa. And very pretty they were too! We keep exploring with an eye to where we would like to finally settle! Still have not an iota of an idea yet - there are so many beautiful places to live within Auckland - but also without too - without is cheaper!

Here we go:
As ever, another beautiful beach! We saw these flowers just growing wildly on the edge of it - aren't they pretty?

Rather chunky leaves too! This next one is very delicate looking, yet was quite prolific!

Our next stop was Gulf Harbour - basically a new little town north of Auckand with ferry routes into the CBD.

These are the parking spaces for the locals!

Coming home after a hard day's fushing......

.....and that's Kev's stripy arm on the left, with Auckland City in the distance on the top right.

After we'd had a wander here, we drove out of the village/town or whatever and tootled along to the local beach - the pohutokawa (NZ Christmas trees) trees there were amazing!

If I were a kid - I'd be on them like a flash, climbing all over the place! Actually, there were too many people around.....!

Ah well.

The weekend just gone had a Bank Holiday for the Queen's birthday, so we grabbed the chance and set off for Pauanui on the Friday night after work.

Of course, we arrived in the dark, so never really saw much of the place straight away, except to say that it is a very quiet, peaceful place with very helpful black signposts! (The writing was in white, but very hard to see in very dark streets with not many street lights).

Anyway, the hotel consisted of chalet type rooms dotted about the wooded hill. Reminded me a bit of Centre Parks in the UK - in that there were lots of trees, bikes to use for guests (free) and cars remained strictly in the car park. We were taken to our room on a little electric go-cart thingy ma jiggy.

This is one of the rooms in the sunny daylight (taken whilst I was waiting for Kev to check out on the Sunday morning).

Needless to say it chucked it down on the Saturday, but in between the showers, we ventured on to the ferry and took the 5 minute ride across to Tairua (takes about 1/2 an hour if you go by car!).

Whilst waiting for the ferry, we watched people fushing from the wharf. The ferry man was lovely and we had a pleasant chat with him as we crossed over to the other side.

Although the weather was a bit pants that day, we were rewarded at various times with bouts of sunshine and a very beautiful rainbow.....

Here's a view of the wharf, as we leave it behind on our travels to Tairua. Once in Tairua, we walked into the town/village centre, heading for our breakfast and the Saturday morning market.

On the way, I watched a smallish bird dive into the sea, flying out with a fush in its beak - it was only as it flew past me that I saw its beak was long and pointed - it was a kingfisher! How cool! I was so pleased to see one! However, I became rather underwhelmed after that cos I carried on seeing them - 5 in all during the next couple of minutes! Wow!


Can you see it?

The next day dawned bright and sunny and we decided to take the long way home in order to further explore the Coromandel and to visit Coromandel Town itself. Here is the beach near the hotel on the Sunday morning - luverly! You can just about see the heads of a couple of surfers out there - wish I'd taken me boogie board now - bums.

Spent a happy morning tootling along past beautiful beaches and winding along the hazardous Coromandel Range roads! Here is the most beautiful view of Coromandel Town taken from very up high in the Ranges during which ride our ears popped several times.

The town itself was quite small - I don't know why, but I expected something much bigger - should be used to it by now - NZ only has around 4 million people and about a million are in Auckland itself. Here's a piccie of part of the main street - pretty little place with very nice fush and chups (I had kumara - sweet potato - chups - yuuummmmmmy).

Whilst we were wandering and gandering, we came upon a smoked fish shop - a heaven for Kev - and immediately went inside! They had loads of stuff! All done by themselves.

Whilst Kev was looking around, this huuuuuge black fluffy thing fell off his head (he was wearing a baseball cap) - it immediately caught our eyes as it fell to the floor and turned out to be the biggest, most humongous, jet black, fluffy spider I've seen since we got to NZ. This whopper then proceeded to make a frenzied mad dash under the nearest fridge in the smoked fush shop.

Needless to say, we didn't tell the owner! This scary ball of black fluff with legs attached was about a big as the circumference of the average tea mug - shiver.....


Anyway, Kev bought loads of smoked this and that and spent a happy half hour tasting the stuff too whilst I kept a shifty eye on the cold storage area in the corner of the vicinity.



The drive from Coromandel Town to Thames was absolutely beautiful and very scenic - blue seas and equally blue skies, mussel farms about 100 metres or so into the sea from the beach, mad drivers and squashed possums - fun!



Once we hit Thames, it was definately time to stretch our legs, have a coffee and visit the loos! Thames is quite big really, and about 1 hour from Auckland - it had a really cool hotel there - I must say, most of the smaller towns (including Howick where we live) have a cowboy/western look about them!:

Half expected a gun toting cowboy telling me to 'stick em up' at some point I did! Except he didn't cos we're in NZ not US and it's the present day, not the 1800s.....

Anyhoo - that's us so far and, as usual, I'm still behind meself! I actually began typing this last Sunday and it's now Friday the 14th! Busy busy as per usual - had parents evenings this week too - that whacked me out.

Well - the fire in the log burner is gloriously flaming away and I am sat toasty warm at the computer in the adjoining kitchen. It's been pretty cool the past few days - about 16 in the day time - but still can't complain hey! It is winter after all and next doors tree is jam packed with oranges etc!

Well - tek care fer now and see some of yous soon!

x Sue