Week 21 ORR

On Friday afternoon we went over to Snells Beach as Rob had invited us over for a meal later Julie being away for the weekend at a conference. I went to the hairdresser to have my hair trimmed, something it badly needed. Then Nigel and I went and had a walk on the beach at Martins Bay.
Rob cooked a very nice meal and we got back home about 8pm.

On Saturday I realised that I needed to return the videos that Jonny had borrowed from the video shop there so we both went in. We had a walk around the town surprised to see that many of the shops were closed on Saturday afternoons. Then we had a walk along the river bank.

On Sunday we had heavy rain and during Sunday night I woke several times to hear the rain pounding on the roof. On Monday morning we had a brief respite from the rain and it felt almost springlike. A good morning for flinging open the windows and doing some housework! It was still damp and drizzly in the afternoon but we did manage a walk around the harbour at Whangateau.
Tuesday was a wet, at home day.
Wednesday morning we went to the cinema to see "Late Bloomers" another enjoyable film. After the film we had a late lunch at the Matakan Kitchen which is situated in the cinema complex before having a walk around the village.
Thursday was my first day helping out at the stables and I arrived there at 10.30am in time to help tack up the horses in readiness for the first ride of the day at 11.30. There were only 10 riders - all Korean- on the ride but most of the horses had been brought in from the paddocks as there were 20 riders in the afternoon. Although the students are in the country on a language course their English is virtually non existant and their knowledge of horses and riding completely non existant. They did, though, seem to enjoy their first equestrian experience. At the end of the ride there was a photo call as they were all keen, as were all subsequent groups, to have photographic evidence of their time on horseback. After lunch the second lot, once again all Korean, arrived and it took quite some time to get all of them mounted , check their stirrups and girth and show them how to hold the reins. The route for the beginners ride goes through the paddocks and then winds up the forested hill to the high paddocks before going down through more paddocks and back to the farm. We have to keep a sharp eye open to make sure that the horses keep in single file as they have their own pecking order and can get quite upset if another horse tries to pass them. We have walkie talkies to keep in contact with the other leaders as the ride can get quite strung out at times. Thanfully all went well and we got them all back safe and sound. By the time that I had untacked and rugged up several horses and led them out to the paddocks I was feeling pretty shattered but had throroughly enjoyed my day. Inside it seems that I am still the little girl who spent a large portion of her childhood helping out at our local riding school!

Week 20 ORR

On Friday morning Danni and I went back to her house where I was to pick up Jonny and take him to the zoo. Plan A had been for Danni to stay at home then but she had decided that she wanted to come back with us so we moved on to Plan B and I arranged to pick her up after we had been to the zoo.
Jonny and I got to the zoo about 11am and due to it being the school holidays it was very busy and both car parks were full. I eventually managed to find a parking space at the top of a very steep hill about 10 minutes walk away.
First stop was to see the giraffes which are Jonny's favourite animal and we were lucky enough to arrive at the time when we could offer them something to eat. What long, blue tongues they have!!
Auckland Zoo is home to the largest collection of native and exotic animals in New Zealand, set in 17 hectares of lush parkland and just five minutes from central Auckland. Thankfully most zoos have become much more aware of the environment that the animals are kept in and the enclosures at Auckland are large and there are few cages to be seen. Large areas of the zoo are predominately filled with moated, barless, naturalistic enclosures.
The zoo houses the The New Zealand Centre for Conservation Medicine which  was opened on 10 August 2007. This NZD $4.6 million, 980 square metres (10,500 sq ft) facility is the first national centre for conservation medicine in the world.
The Auckland Zoo Conservation Fund supports a number of conservation programs, both overseas and in New Zealand. The currently supported overseas projects are a turtle and tortoise programme in Vietnam, the Sumatran orang utang Project and the Sumatran tiger.
 There are also captive breeding programs to support the kiwi recovery program and I was finally able to see a Kiwi in the darkened Kiwi house. Only a glimpse of it's long probing  beak as it probed the undergrowth but at last I can say that I have seen this famous symbol of New Zealand!
It was good to see that the zoo is encouraging everyone to help South Eastern rainforest species by choosing palm free oil foods. The uncontrolled expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia is currently destroying rainforest habitat at the rate of 54 rugby fields an hour, pushing rainforest species like the orangutan, Sumatran tiger, Asian rhino and Asian elephant towards extinction. As advocates for wildlife, Auckland Zoo believes the only way to slow this uncontrolled expansion is to reduce palm oil consumption, and therefore demand. As consumers, the power is in our hands to help.

We had a brief break for lunch and after 4 hours walking I was ready to leave but not looking forward to walking back up the hill to the car! Anyway I made it and we were soon back at the house to pick up Danni and return  home.  Rob was here when we got back and after he left we had our meal and I was ready to collapse!!
On Saturday morning I took Danni and Jonny to see Ice Age 4 before dropping them off at Rob and Julie's for the afternoon. I came back home for a rest and prepared a roast pork dinner for Rob, Julie, the children and Daniel which, as usual went down well.
The 7 ladies who are staying at the house had arrived later in the afternoon after they had been riding at Warkworth. They were celebrationg the 50th birthay of one of them and were delighted with the house and it's situation .
Rob picked up Danni and Jonny on Sunday morning and took them back home. Peace, perfect peace!! I stripped the beds in the house and started washing them.
Monday was wet and windy so, in the afternoon, we went to the cinema to see A Royal Affair. A Danish film  a 2012 historical film  set in the 18th century, at the court of the mentally ill King Christian VII which focuses on the romance between the queen and the royal physician Struensee. We both thoroughly enjoyed the film.
Another rainy day on Tuesday but it started to clear up in the afternoon.
On Wednesday morning we went for yet another walk on the beach at Goat Island which I think I can say has become our favourite beach despite there being so many beautiful beaches in the area. We continue to be fascinated by the pied shags that nest there and there was a whole "gaggle" (I can't find,even on google, the name for a group of these birds) of them on the beach. Many of the group were young and parents were flying in and feeding the young birds on the beach. Others were standing with their wings outspread, drying them, after making tentative sorties into the sea. They seemed to have no fear of us and allowed us to get within a few yards of them.

On Thursday I decide to go for a ride as Danni is not coming at the weekend and I didn't want to miss out on my ride this week. I rang Heather and she said to arrive at 1.30. I opted to try out Zoe this time as I had been told that she was a good ride. I arrived at 1.30 and found that I was the only person on the ride and was to be escorted by Leonie a very nice German girl who is working there temporarily. Leonie was good compay and Zoe was indeed a good ride and we passed a very pleasant hour riding around the farm and chatting. When we got back I was asked if I would help out, over the next 3 weeks, as they have a lot of foreign language students booked in from their schools in Auckland. It means a lot of free riding so, of course, I am only too happy to help them out. Over the last few months I have got to know the owners, Heather and Roger, of the stables and farm well and they are a really nice, hardworking couple.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYQRyk9aDbs 
I went to the supermarket afterwards and had a chat with a nice, geordie lady who has lived here for 14 years. She asked me to sample a wine which she was promoting. It was rather unfortunate, for her, that her position was next to a rack of special offer Jacobs Creek wines at $7.99 and that her wines were $15! Her wine was good but it was the  Jacobs Creek went into my trolly.
When I got back home I found Rob had called in so we spent an hour or so chatting before he left.

Week 19 ORR.

It seemed strange not to be driving down to pick up either Danni or Jonny but as they are still away we are not seeing them until Monday. Jodi has posted some photos on facebook and it looks as if they are really enjoying their first time in the snow. I am so pleased as Danni was not keen on going so it's good to see her smiling face in the photos.
Friday was a beautiful day so we spent the afternoon walking along the beach at Goat Island which has become one of our favourite places. We remain fascinated with the shags who are still nesting there, some with fledglings in the nest and others sitting on their nests. The parents are busy flying backwards and forwards, swooping in to land gracefully at the side of the nests on the delicate branches high in the Pohutakawa trees. They must have more sense than we credit them for as nesting on the edge of a marine sanctuary must provide them with an abundance of food.
It was low tide so we were able to walk along the beach as far as the pile of rocks which then blocked our way.

Another beautiful day dawned on Saturday, chilly at first but then the bright, warm sun soon warmed things up. I went into Warkworth in the morning to do some shopping. Matakana had the usual,Saturday mini traffic jam due to the farmers market. Julie has said to us that the weather here can provide 4 seasons in one day and in the supermarket I remarked, to myself, that one can also see 4 seasons of dress in the same day. There were people wearing real winter clothing - coats, wooly hats and boots. Others in shorts with t shirts or sweat shirts. Some young girls, like Danni, wore shorts and woolly tights. As for footwear or not it seems that anything goes from bare feet via jandles (flip flops), sandals, boots and wellies. Wellies with shorts seems to be popular with a large proportion of the men!! I have always noticed that a lot of New Zealanders walk around in bare feet and today was no exception as I saw 2 people in the supermarket in bare feet. I well remember remonstrating with Danni when she first started school and telling her that she should wear shoes but she said lots of us go to school in bare feet and I did indeed see many children entering the school shoe less.

In the afternoon we went to Tawharanui . Tawharanui is not far from here as the crow flies but by road it takes about a half hour, the last 6kms of the drive on a hilly unmetalled road. 
"Set on a remote peninsula, Tawharanui Regional Park boasts some of the Auckland region's most beautiful white sand beaches, rolling pastures, shingled bays native coastal forest and regenerating wetlands.
The 588-hectare park is New Zealand's first integrated open sanctuary (mainland island) where farming, public recreation and conservation of native species combine. The name Tawharanui refers to "the abundant bracts of the kiekie vine". The iconic Anchor Bay is named after the anchor of the Phoenix, a vessel wrecked on the Tawharanui coastline in 1879.
Tawharanui Regional Park is also an Open Sanctuary, where native plants and animals including kiwi can live and breed successfully without the threat of predators.

We walked along the beach at Anchor Bay and I even took off my socks and trainers and had a paddle. So much to see on the beach, rock pools, interesting rock formations and geology. The sky was cloudless until in the distance we could see a  long white cloud which gives New Zealand the name of "The country of the long white cloud". The sea was flat and calm out in the gulf and we thought that it would have been such a good day for going out fishing on the boat, As we sat on a rock looking at the stunning views and thinking how lucky we were we noticed several birds that looked to be swallows. Always a welcome sight back home in the spring but here we were in New Zealand in the winter. We watched a man walk down to the sea carrying a canoe surfer and then watched him as he paddled out to catch a few waves - he made it look so easy! When we got home I googled swallows in NZ and they are apparently welcome swallows who made their way here from Australia in the 1950's. They first nested in Northland but have since spread over most of the country. Unlike their relatives in Australia they do not migrate. They are considered to be native birds as they made their way here themselves rather than being introduced.

Sunday was a day at home and Rob, Julie and Daniel came for a roast beef and Yorksshire pudding dinner. It seems that my Yorkshire puddings are very popular!
After they left I went over to the house where I had made up one of the beds for me. I went to sleep at about 10pm and set the alarm for 2am as I wanted to watch the men's singles final between Andy Murray and Roger Federer. When I started watching Andy Murray was 1 set up but after a good match he lost 3 sets to 1. It would have been good to, finally, have a British winner but Roger Federer has always been one of my favourites and he did play so well. I was back in bed by 5.30am and managed to sleep until 10.30 am waking up to a beautiful view of the estuary from my bedroom window.

Rob had picked Danni up at 10 am and I went over to Snells Beach for lunch with them. I then took Danni down the road to have her hair trimmed - she was so pleased to go to the hairdresser! I brought Danni back here later in the afternoon and after our evening meal I was ready for bed after my broken night the night before.

On Tuesday Danni and I were over at Rob's for 9am ready to go out fishing. It was a chilly morning but the sun was out and the sea was calm. We had a bit of a drama on the way to launch the boat at Scott's landing when the boat slid off the trailer. Luckily we were not on the main road and there was no car behind us. The boat was still sitting upright on the road and using superhuman strength Rob managed to winch it back on the trailer. Thankfully neither the boat nor the engine sustained any damage. We set off at 10am and in 20 minutes or so the boat was anchored and we started fishing. Danni had the first catch, a small Kohawai that we kept for bait. The main excitement of the day though was seeing Orcas (killer whales) on 4 separate occasions. The nearest that they came to the boat was about 50 yards I think. It was a magnificent sight, they are so big yet so graceful. I suspect that they must have frightened (or eaten) a lot of the fish as I never caught a fish that was big enough to keep and neither did Danni. Luckily our "captain" hooked 4 fair sized snapper which we took back for tea. We were back at the boat ramp for 3pm and this time managed to get back home without losing the boat! Nigel came over for tea and Rob and I took the filletted snapper down to the local takeawy where they cooked it for us. The batter was very light, the chips were good and the fish was amazing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxZK3XhP0Y

On Wednesday morning Danni and I went on a 2 hour ride on Pakiri beach. I had bought, online, 2 vouchers for a 2 hour ride for the price of one. A bargain as a 2 hour ride is normally 120$. Half way through the ride 5 of us took a different route to the others and had an exciting gallop through the dunes along a narrow, up and down twisty path. I was a bit concerned about Danni as I knew that she had not been that fast before but thankfully she had stayed on and was thrilled to have gone so fast!

On Thursday morning Danni helped me make up the beds in the big house as we are expecting 7 guests at the weekend.
In the afternoo we went to the cinema to see "Ted" a film for 13 year olds + so we had to embroider the truth somewhat as she is not 13 until next May. Had I known anything about the film I wouldn't have done so but she enjoyed it much more than I did. In my opinion (aged as I am) there was far too much gratuitous swearing in it but sadly it is what they are used to these days.

Week 18 ORR.

We had planned to visit MOTAT - the museum of transport and technology before picking Danni up after school at 4pm. However Danni messaged me to say that they were not at school, it being the last day of term, and could I pick her up earlier. So plan B came into action and I suggested that she may like to go to MOTAT with us. She was keen to do so and said that Jonny would like to come too so we arranged to pick them up at midday. MOTAT is not too far from where they live so it would be easy to drop Jonny off after our visit.
http://www.motat.org.nz/whats-on/current-exhibitions

Entry to MOTAT was free for the month of June which was a bonus. It is on two sites connected by a tram so we took the tram to the aircraft display site. Although not of great interest to me it was a very impressive exhibition with many aircraft and the children were quite interested in it. Nigel was much more interested and after we had had a look around I suggested that he spent more time there whilst we went back to the main site. We arranged to rendezvous at the cafe at 2pm. Back at the main site there was lots of interest for Danni and Jonny and we had a good look round before  going to the cafe for a snack and meeting Nigel. Nigel was a bit late as he had decided to walk back from the aircraft exhibtion which turned out to be further than he had thought.
After lunch we split up again to have a further look round before leaving at 3.15. We dropped Jonny off at home and were back here by 5pm. Rob came in after work and had a meal with us.
Next morning we were booked on the 10am ride at Warkworth where Danni had arranged to meet up with Keri and Sonya with who she would then return to Auckland. They were booked for a 2 hour ride but I just went for the first hour. I had a change of mount this time, I rode Flicka a skewbald, who turned out to be a good ride. I was a bit disconcerted when we had our first canter as her head went down and I thought she may put in a buck but I was told that that was just the way she goes! Back in the paddock Danni had some good jumps on Lenora before we got back to the stables and she changed horses for her second hour. I said good bye to them and came back home.
We had a party of 7 young men staying in the house who had asked Jill if they could play loud music and we had agreed that it would be OK. Thankfully I never heard anything although Nigel did but not enough to be a problem.They hadn't arrived until late on Friday night, after we had gone to bed, and didn't get up till well past midday on Saturday. It seemed that they were up until the early hours again on Sunday and were late risers again. Jill had been a bit concerned about letting the house to them but they did a good job of tidying up and took away all their rubbish so there were no problems.
On Monday I stripped the beds and washed the bedding and in the afternoon Pam came in to give the house a "deep" clean. I have kept up with tidying it up after the guests had left but felt it was time that a "professional" gave it a clean!
It started to rain heavily on Monday night and I lay in bed listening to the rain on the roof - a sound that I love to hear. From time to time I could hear the birds that nest under the eaves shifting and "grumbling" about the rain! The rain carried on throughout the night and Tuesday morning  with the occasional clap of thunder and strong winds. Then suddenly the rain stopped, the wind died down and the sun came out and we had a beautiful afternoon.
The tour de France started on Sunday and I am  able, with the use of a proxy server, to watch ITV4's highlights programme. Over the last few years I have become an avid follower of the tour and would have been upset to miss it. So, every morning, I now watch the previous days stages.
On Wednesday afternoon we made a trip to the cinema to watch another French film Cafe de Flore. One review says "A love story between a man and woman. And between a mother and her son. A mystical and fantastical odyssey on love." It was indeed mystical as when it finished we still were not sure of the story line if indeed there was one. Never the less we had both thoroughly enjoyed the film.
Thursday morning was foggy and chilly and never really warmed up all day with some rain in the afternoon.

Week 17 ORR.

We were to pick up Danni on Friday afternoon so we decided to make a day of it and visit a couple of places on the way. We had wanted to visit the museum at Helensville but it was closed on Fridays but decided to go there anyway. It was  a pleasant 45 minute drive there. Helensville is just a small town with not a lot to recommend it but very good for people watching! It was, apparently, voted one of the 10 top small towns to visit in NZ by a magazine but even I, only a visitor to the country, can think of many other small towns that have more to recommend them.
http://www.helensville.co.nz/
The toilets - here I go again about toilets- were quite special. The outside was covered in murals and the toilets themselves fully automated. On entering we were instructed, in an American voice- to lock the door and to be told that we had a time limit of 10 minutes. Then we were played relaxing music! A very bizarre experience! There were not many tempting eating places but we found a passable one in the main street and sat by the window watching the world go by.

 Our next stop was at Muriwai beach. I had been there on my first visit to NZ to see the gannet colony there and wanted Nigel to see it. Sadly the gannets were on holiday and not expected to return until August. http://www.wildlifeextra.co.nz/go/nz/muriwai-gannets.html#cr
Never the less we had a walk by the beach which is in itself a sight worth seeing unique because of its black sand caused by the iron content derived from the ancient volcanoes in the area.

It wasn't too far from there to get to Massey to pick up Danni and as we were a bit early we did some shopping on the way. We went to one of the many fruit and vegetable shops in Hobsonville Road which are renowned for the quality and price of their products. After that we stopped at The Mad Butcher to stock up on some meat products. The company was founded by Peter Leitch in the 1970's and now has more than 30 shops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Leitch_%28Mad_Butcher%29
Danni was ready when we arrived and an hour or so later we were back home. Rob came after work and  once dinner was over Danni entertained us for a while with some dancing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHVRRSRcN4&feature=youtu.be
On Saturday morning Danni and I went over to Snells Beach to visit the Wearhouse where I bought a pair of jeans and Danni got some trainers.
In the afternoon we were booked on the 3.30 ride at Warkworth and Danni managed not to fall off this time! We didn't get back home until 5.30 and Rob was already here. We were so late because Danni loves to groom and untack the ponies before we leave the stables. It's good that she understands that there is more to horses that just riding them so I am happy to hang around whilst she does her thing.
Rob picked Danni up on Sunday morning and took her back home.
On Monday afternoon we went to the cinema to see The Well Diggers Daughter (La Fille du Puisatier) a French film with sub titles. We both thoroughly enjoyed it and we were both reminded of our neighbour back home who was so much like the father, Pascal, in the film. Once the lights came up and we went outside it took a while to realise that we were, indeed, in NZ and not back home in Castandet.
Tuesday and Wednesday were at home days and Thursday we both went shopping at New World in Warkworth.