Walking the grandboy

We're on grandparent duty in San Diego. We delivered Xander to pre-school and retrieved him with much discussion about many things in both directions!

We’re not in the Shire anymore

We were thinking more like Mordor as we flew in over Los Angeles. We passed right over Catalina Island; we could have just hopped out instead of driving back up on Monday. A bit of a shock to go from the beach and green paddocks to this magnitude of concrete in less than 24 hours! Catching the 12:30 Amtrak to San Diego tomorrow, but first we sleep!

Last days in Raglan

The time has flown by and we’re doing final chores, like vacuuming and washing Paula and Kevin’s car, cleaning up the house, packing, taking the last compost to the worms. Said goodbye to the nice lady at the Environmental Centre. Jim hauled home the last fish (tarahiki or is it tarakihi?) and chips feed. This afternoon we’ll spend our last sunny afternoon on the beach. Raglan has been a wonderful, serene place to stay; we recommend it. We can even recommend a good rental house and the Arbuckles are great landlords!

Farewells

We drove out to Glen Massey the other day for a last visit with Paul and Daphne on a rainy day (one of only 3 or 4 this month). Got to see Paula, Kevin and the girls, down from Whitianga for a netball tournament. Had a final visit with Hori the Pig. We brought him treats (okay, Karin brought treats). In downtown Raglan today, we ran into Tim, the boat captain and subject of Karin’s book interview here, so we farewelled him, too. Have done a few more local hikes. We went back to Bridal Veil Falls on a misty day and yesterday we tramped through the Wainui Reserve through cow paddocks down to the beach.

Tiki tour

We put some kilometers on Paula and Kevin’s little car this week. A visit with old friends Gary and Kaye Pollock took us to Taupo. They drove 2 hours over from Napier and met us at our hotel. We had a great catch-up with them over lunch (hadn’t seen them since a visit to their farm near Tamworth on our sabbatical in Australia, 2003). We got as far as Huka Falls with them when they got a call; their son was ill, so they had to jump in their car and head home. It was a lovely if brief visit.

After they left, we went out to Orakei Korako thermal area. A little boat took us across Lake Ohakuri and we spent the afternoon hiking through a preserve with boiling mud pools, geysers and steam huffing out of the ground. A bit sobering to think of what’s happening just under your feet. That evening, we fired up the spa and put our suits on. Jim always likes a good Jacuzzi.

We took a longer route home through Te Kuiti and Waitomo where we stopped to go through the glowworm caves. We’ve been here before, but Jim hadn’t. We think he was pretty interested in the “stars” inside the cave. It looks like the Milky Way, but just thousands of little worms working hard to catch a fly or two. No photos allowed inside; it scares the worms, so we had to settle for just our little boat as we left the cave and a few at the site, which is quite a bit more touristy than we remembered.

Raglan by night

A day with the Moxons

We drove out Waingaro Road to Glen Massey just this side of Ngaruawahia to see Paul and Daphne. They laid out lunch and after a tour of the house and gardens, we were off on a drive to see the countryside (that’s their house in the centre of the photo from up on the hill). BUT not before Karin could be reunited with the baby Captain Cook pig she saved from the dogs on the pig hunt in 1999. Hori went to live with a neighbour, who had domestic pigs, and has since had a pleasant reproductive life. He’s a bit bigger than when we saw him last. Paul let the neighbour know we were coming, so Hori waited in the stye for us. There was definitely a twinkle of recognition and Rick captured the reunion with many photos. Jim was not particularly impressed.

Off to Taupo tomorrow!