14 hours later and there he is, although not with a placard like I hoped! Little Vein had come to pick us up from the airport, and show us the real Auckland. It was great to see him and Sharan again, and see them on their turf, and what lovely turf it was.
We stayed in the City Centre and spent the first 5 days getting ourselves equipped for the coming year. Buying a car..a fab Mitsubishi Lancer Station Wagon, full time 4 wheel drive, and a mobile phone. The weather was rubbish. One winter into another, is not something we would recommend to anyone!
We didn’t visit too many places in Auckland. We wondered around the town, went to the Harbour and went up Mt Eden, which had a fantastic view of Auckland. We figured that we will spend a bit more time there on our way out of NZ, but not yet!
Dean then got the call. We had to go to the ‘Naki’ as he had a job interview.
The drive down to Taranaki was actually not that bad. It is strange that once you leave Auckland, you only see single lane roads. Not quite the M25! It was nice to see the scenery change as we travelled down. We stayed at a Farm stay in Hawera when we arrived there. It was beautiful, but freezing. My goodness we reached NZ just as it was having its worst winter in years. Worse than the UK and that is saying something. Dean had his interview and we decided that we should explore the area a little more. There are 2 main highways in Taranaki. Highway 3 and the surf highway 45. You can guess which one we decided to take! Highway 45 goes around the outside of Mount Taranki. The first time you set eyes on Mount Taranaki (which is harder than it sounds due to the awful weather that the ‘Naki’ seems to get), you breath is taken from you. It is immense and beautiful. This huge mountain just sticking out of the middle of the ground. A single point. We drove around stopping at all the little places on the way. The first place we thought we may be able to stay at was Opanake. This is a surf Mecca, however was completely deserted on the day we visited. We kept driving and finally arrived in New Plymouth. Apparently a ‘City’, New Plymouth isn’t exactly pretty. It looks like someone needed more space and just kept building. We stayed a night and decided to explore a little more. And there it was. The place we decided to stay. Oakura. Perfect, the sea and mountain all in a 3600 view.
We stayed at a campsite for a couple of weeks (and made great friends with the owners) while we looked for an abode and 3 weeks later we had moved in. We now live in a little house from which we can view the mountain from our kitchen window and the sea while sitting in our lounge. Heaven.
If the weather is bad, don’t moan about it, make the most of it. We decided that we should have a small trip to the snow. Dean has only ever been once and I have never been. This was going to be interesting! Mount Taranaki has its own ski field; however it really is for those with a bit of snow savvy of which Dean and I have none. Instead we opted for the 4 hour drive to Mt Ruapheu with 2 days of snowboard lessons for each of us.
The adventure begins. Driving up a mountain with almost zero visibility, a blizzard and no barriers on an ice road with a sheer drop is not for the faint hearted, and not one of the most pleasurable experiences, but by ‘eck you know you are alive. We were geniuses for having the four wheel drive! After reaching the top we felt that we could take on the world, snowboarding was going to be a breeze. With nerves of steel and being the talented surf legends that we are we thought we had it in the bag. Oh how wrong we were. We spent most of the time on my rear, but my goodness it is addictive! I loved it. We came home exhausted but determined to do it all again before the snow disappears.
So this is where we are up to. The next instalment will hopefully be a little sooner. We just want to say that we miss everyone loads, but are loving the great outdoors. Here is a little preview of our next instalment:
Tramping....
We buy another car
Cornerstone roots
Carla joins a book club (geek)
Carla gets a job
Dean buys a surfboard
Surfing at the end of our street!
Dean and Carla go to the sugarloaf’s
Dean catches a big fish
Seals near our house
Outrageous Fortune...it is outrageous
The veggie patch
Training for round the mountain race
Dean and Carla volunteer for the DoC
More snowboard adventures
Until then...sweet as bro’!
