Waiheke Island on scooters

http://www.waihekenz.com/index.html

Description for those that don’t know: Waiheke Island is a 30 minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland. It is one of the 47 islands that are in the Auckland region. It’s the Napa of the North Island of New Zealand, as Waiheke Island known for its wineries, but it just happens to be a small island. It’s very posh to live on Waiheke. Kind of like living in Marin. Get it? Good.

We did a day excursion to Waiheke. We had 4 reasons for going:

1. Winter Special- It usually costs $32 per person, round trip, to get there. I happened to come across a Winter Special (even though it’s Spring) for $10 per person, round trip. YAY! That is an amazing deal. So, I pre-booked and hoped that it wouldn’t rain.

2. Nancy- My friend Nancy needed 2 bottles of Goldwater Vineyard Cab/Merlot wine. She came to New Zealand to visit us in November of last year and I took her to Waiheke for a wine tour. Turns out the wine she bought from there ended up in a book called 1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die. So, she simply had to have it again. Here's the link to the winery. http://www.goldwater.co.nz/

3. Beach house for Holming’s 40^th birthday- When Nancy and I were touring the island last year, our driver took us past his rental beach house, or ‘bach’ (pronounced ‘batch’) in NZ-speak, and told us to look him up if we ever wanted to rent it. Well, I do but I needed to see the inside before committing.

4. Scooter- I’ve really been wanting to ride a scooter. Been thinking of buying one but have never actually driven one. We thought the best place to ride would be on Waiheke because it’s a very small island and thought people (stupid drivers) wouldn’t be in such a hurry there.

So on the day we were booked to go to Waiheke, it was raining, of course. We decided to go anyway as I really needed to get that wine and well, what’s a bit of rain, right? WRONG....

As we rented the scooter the guy asked me if I had ever driven one before, and I quickly lied and said “yes!”, because I didn’t want an intro lesson. Rain was on the way and I needed to put this puppy in high gear. I had places to go and wine to buy..... Once on the scooter, I realized that it didn’t have any gears. Haha. It was a wobbly start but I managed. Of course, Holming was a natural.

15 minutes into the ride, it started to rain.

The 1^st and furthest stop was the beach house. Saw it- Loved it- Booked it. Here’s the link. http://www.gotowaiheke.co.nz/beachfrontchalet.htm

This is where we will be celebrating Holming’s birthday this year.

At this point it is really coming down hard, I’m freezing and very wet (wet as if I just came out of the shower) but having the time of my life on this awful yellow scooter. We went for Nancy’s wine, took a quick picture of Holming and got the hell out of there. What a fun and disastrous time. Missions accomplished!

By the way, this is what the same spot looks like on a not so rainy day. Here is Nancy and I enjoying the scenery.

My favourite things about Spring

One of the things that I absolutely love about living in New Zealand is that we have “real seasons” here. Summer is hot, Autumn is windy and cooler, Winter is freezing and depressing, and Spring is about babies and Mother Nature. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. Oh, and by the way, one thing we get with all the seasons is RAIN.

All my favourite things involve nature and animals…surprise, surprise. You can find sheep and cows grazing at most parks around New Zealand, all year long. But Springtime is about the babies. No, not the whiny crying ones, the ones that have four legs.

This picture was taken at Cornwall Park. Aren’t they so cute?

The other thing I love, not just about NZ, but the area we live in, are the ducks that just live in the neighbourhood. We actually have duck crossing signs on the main road. This is the only place I’ve ever been that cars actually stop while a family of ducks cross the street. Now that is adorable. Although I don’t have a photo of the duck crossing, I do have a photo of a family of ducks across the road from our house.



And last, but not least, Spring isn’t just about shearing sheep for wool but it’s about shearing off Sunny’s Winter coat.

A Walk in the Waitakere Ranges

We are just coming out of winter here and entering spring and it's still very cold. Last weekend we decided to get out of the house on this fine sunny day, even though it was only 11C (47F). We have a book "Walking the Waitakere Ranges" that we like to use on our adventure walks. It describes some of the 140+ tracks and trails in the ranges (our house is located at the foot of the Waitakere Ranges). We weren't feeling very adventurous so chose what we thought would be an easy walk by the Lower Huia Dam.

The description said that this was a good walk to do on your first date (5 years too late) since it has wide tracks, making it possible to walk side by side. It didn't mention that we would be walking on gravel for the first half of the trail and wouldn't be able to hear each other talk or the native birds up above. Come to think of it, not being able to hear each other must be why it's a 'good first date' walk.

We came across a fork that was not in the book and decided to go left. The book did say that after the track heads downhill the bush pushes in closer.


Well this was nice and cozy, thanks. When we reached a rather large stream and realized that we couldn't cross it, we thought we would retrace our steps back to the last fork in the track.



I assumed we were back on track when we came across the "short set of clay steps" described in our guide book, that happen to be taller than half my body. Not exactly what someone would want to do on their first date.





We decided that I would go down first because I wanted to help Sunny and take a picture of Holming while he was coming down.

All three of us made it down without a scratch! Here is a picture to prove it.


It turned out to be a nice walk even with the detours. Till the next adventure!

A Bad Week

Let me start off by saying that I feel thoroughly welcome in New Zealand and don’t need anymore welcoming in my lifetime.

Last week was yet another week of bad luck. It started off on Monday with someone smashing into my car bumper at work and not leaving a note. The car park I park in is not attached to the hospital and is first come first served, so I will never know who did it. A side story to that one is that I now have match bumpers. About 6 months ago, I ran into my garage while pulling in. Part of the problem was that I was new to driving while sitting on the right side of the car and the other problem was that my cell phone fell off my lap while I was pulling in, which distracted me. Ugh! I was pretty annoyed with myself, but even more annoyed with the person that smashed into my car.

Tuesday was a totally different story. In preparation for rubbish pick up on Wednesday, I decided to put our rubbish bags (yes, we still use bags) and recycle bin out when I arrived home from work (at about 4:30pm). Well, about 30 minutes later, I was closing the blinds in the front of the house and noticed that our recycle bin was not there anymore. WHAT!?!?! We ran down the hill to see if we could find our bin with no such luck. On another side story, our neighbour had installed a surveillance camera facing our driveway since our house was burglarised five months ago. He can only see the street view and driveway. So, we popped over to ask him if he saw anything. Sure enough, the video clip has me putting out the rubbish then some young guy walking up the hill 15 minutes later and walking off with our bin. I mean really, who in the hell wants a full recycle bin? They are FREEEEEE from the council. If a neighbour can steal a recycle bin from in front of your house, what else would he be inclined to take? Moving on…..

Wednesday was the absolute worst of them all. We went on with our morning as usual, except bin-less. When Holming arrived at work, he noticed that someone had keyed the hood of his car, from one end to the other. WTF! We think it happened the day before while he was parked on the street at work. Not sure if the fact that it was freshly cleaned and someone was jealous had anything to do with it. We just don’t understand why people do these kinds of things. We have never! What’s next?

The fact that all these awful things have happened to us in one weeks time is just bad luck. Now that that’s out of the way we look forward to better times here in New Zealand.