Author: Mrs A
Location: Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
It’s been a fabulous week with family and friends, meeting neighbours and getting tips and hints for future travels. We have also managed to catch up with friends from Sydney into the bargain, with a couple of lunches enjoyed.
Mr A and I have done some more paddling and hiking throughout the last week, making the most of the weather, which has been typical New Zealand (rain-sun-rain-sun!).
We had a great paddle up the nearby Waipapa River, timing it perfectly with the tides helping us in and out on our trip.
Christmas Day was glorious, with a delicious family dinner and an afternoon walk to work it off.
On Boxing Day we caught up with friends in the morning, and spent an afternoon walking in the Kaimai Range, not far from Omokoroa:
On Thursday, stepbrother Simon, Sue’s eldest son, came to visit, bringing wine and gifts. A delicious family brunch was followed by a short walk.
Friday saw us heading about an hour’s drive north up to Karangahake Gorge to catch up with friends Sara and Barny who were passing through on their Christmas holiday. After a pub lunch we went for a short walk to some waterfalls, and then a circuit walk through the gorge:
We’ve really enjoyed exploring this area, but will be ready to head off a little further afield next week, packing up our tent (and hopefully no punctured mattresses!) to explore some more.
We hope you had a lovely week, whether you celebrate Christmas or whether you just took the opportunity to spend some quality time with friends and family. Seasons greetings from us both!
Mr A and I drove into sleepy Canowindra to send off the last of our eBay sales, a couple of Christmas gifts to the UK, and return our tyre-pressure monitoring kit back to the factory for testing. Despite fully reinstalling the monitors from scratch in the morning, they still failed to show all our wheels on the system.
We farewelled Jo and Alan and drove to our next destination, Bathurst. There we stopped the night with friend David and his two boys, Felix and Rory, enjoying steak and salad and a good night’s sleep. This is where the Cruiser will spend the next few weeks while we are in New Zealand.
The afternoon was spent doing a little Christmas shopping and a visit to my ENT surgeon (iSGS followers – I had my first awake steroid injection into my stenosis!).
Jenny and David had invited a bunch of their friends over for Christmas drinks and nibbles in the evening, so Mr A and I helped prepare the apartment for visitors, starting with quality testing the beverages – a glass of French Champagne before the guests arrived.
A fun evening proceeded – delicious food and drink accompanied by much laughter and interesting conversations. Fabulous!
The weather didn’t stop us, and we enjoyed the hike with the rain and wind at our backs, with the shower stopping in time for our return route.
We enjoyed a great evening with Barb and Omar, a delicious chicken hotpot and some fine wine of course, before retiring to our bed up on the hill, lulled to sleep by a chorus of croaking frogs. Very relaxing indeed!
We had a delicious breakfast in Berry with Barb, Omar and another friend, Joanne who happened to be in town, before taking our kayak down to Broughton Creek and launching it for a paddle. After all our hard work the past few weeks, this was finally us reaping our reward, and the morning was perfect for it.
Spring has truly sprung here, and the riverside was lined with young calves, staring in shock at this 7+ metre giant boat cruising past. There was not a breath of wind, providing us with some amazing mirror-like reflections.
We paddled just over 9km, before returning for hot showers and a relaxing afternoon. It’s been a while since we’ve been allowed such luxury!
It was great to be back out amongst the gum trees, the beautiful scents of the Australian bush reminding us what all our hard work the past few weeks has been about.
Kookaburras flew across our path, and up in the trees there were the constant squarks of sulpha crested cockatoos and the calls of the eastern whip birds and superb fairy wrens.
There was a bit of climbing involved, and I felt so grateful to be breathing easily again – the first real test since my surgery a few weeks ago.
We followed the pretty Carroll Creek, winding alongside Sydney sandstone.
Getting out there amongst nature definitely relieved some of the stress of the past few weeks, and we are determined to do more of it.
The Auxier Ridge trail took us 8km out and back along a …wait for it…ridge…which was excellent for Catherine’s current breathing capacity and my old bones. It was another great recommendation from our mate Tom, although I think we only managed two of the five trails he suggested!
Bird life was a bit sparse, a couple of eagles graced us with their soaring presence briefly, then haughtily exited stage right when even Catherine looked too big a morsel for lunch. 
It looks as though a lot of people camp out on the end of the trail, despite the signs forbidding it. Pity they can’t manage to carry a few extra grams and take a trowel to bury their waste. Some things are universal unfortunately, we experience the same in Australia.
We staggered back to the car severely feeling the humidity, and retreated by mid afternoon to the wonderful AC cooled Cliffview Lodge. However, we had a bit of strange experience on the drive back, all of sudden really weird noises came out of the phone and car audio system while I was negotiating a tight bend. What the heck was that? A message came on the phone screen – it was a presidential alert testing the national emergency wireless system.
I’m surprised Trump didn’t use it to send a personal message to us all..something self-effacing, well thought through and fact based no doubt.
Mr A did some careful negotiating, using my breathing as an excuse, managed to get them to agree to refund us the next two nights…we’ll be checking out in the morning and moving to a better rated hotel.
We checked out of our damp and smelly Hemlock Lodge and headed across to our new accomodation at Cliffview Lodge. So much nicer! A large, clean room with a sliding door leading to a wraparound veranda with rocking chairs and swing benches overlooking a beautiful view.
We were unable to get to a couple of the other walks he recommended due to bogginess of the road – we really missed our Landcruiser here. But after this walk headed to Gray’s Arch.
More spectacular scenery awaited us there with just the very beginnings of autumn beginning to show in the foliage. We’re just loving being among these deciduous trees, reminding us of our lives in England, and the scenery and walks otherwise quite reminiscent of the Blue Mountains, just outside Sydney.
Once up, it was a spectacular view as we walked over this bridge, and then climbed under it to begin the walk back down.
To reach the underside of the bridge we had to squeeze through a narrow crack in the rock, but the view was worth it. The geology sure is impressive here!
Our hike down took us through more narrow, low and extremely steep and slippery pathways – we were so grateful Tom had loaned us two hiking poles.
Before long we were back at the car, ready to head back for showers and food.
Our first night was spent at a beautiful Italian seafood restaurant courtesy of another member of Catherine’s sub-glottic stenosis support group and her husband, Lynne and Ron, and what a great vibe down on the wharf. We could get used to this!
Some browsing around the shops later we headed off on a tram across town to a discount shoe outlet, even the conductor wouldn’t take our money! It was quite an experience travelling up and down San Fransisco’s incredibly steep hills.
Lots of shoe bargains later, we walked back to the bay and hit an oyster bar – wow there’s some big fellas here and a very different flavour from what we’re used to in the Southern Hemisphere.
Dinner was an early affair (Catherine is feeling pretty beat with her airway so closed at the moment, and we had clocked up just under 12km (7.5 miles) on foot!). We had booked a Korean restaurant just down the road from our apartment and once again had some awesome food. California really has not disappointed.
This city is being so kind to us. I think she knows we have fallen in love.
The dog walkers were out in force, although this guy seemed to have his own pack very well trained.
A big walk back along the bayside and a lunch in the sun – I had been hanging for a crab chowder in a bread roll – and I got it! Sadly no dairy free version of that creamy number for Mrs A.
Off we marched again and caught the ferry over to Alcatraz for a superbly produced audio tour. Thanks to our Napa friends, Susan and Joe, who encouraged us to book the trip – it is not usually our thing to hang out in the crowds but this was great. I wonder how many of the 1 million visitors a year have sworn off a life of crime after seeing this place?
Now I have to admit we then committed a major faux pas for travellers and went back to the same Korean for dinner. Please forgive us, but we had seen another dish on the menu we both wanted and just couldn’t resist. We were home by 6.30pm (16km (10 miles) of walking under our belts today) and packed up ready for our early getaway tomorrow to Chicago. Wild things no longer.
