Day 7: Sun 08 Jan: Summer in NZ is like winter in San Francisco…

In other words…more rain.  Alternating from light showers to heavy, windy rain.

This morning’s breakfast had a slight variation: home canned peaches in the porridge. I also had some of the yogurt I bought—the best I’d ever tasted. Even though there is a monopoly milk producer on this island, and it is likely the milk from that commercial yogurt came from Fonterra.  Without additives, it still tasted rich and creamy--just the right tartness. What are they doing differently? …

Another walk in the rain…This time I wore my fancy silk pants (washed from yesterday’s spill, and dried on the radiator last night).  I safety pinned them up in short shorts under my rain jacket, so as not to get my jeans wet.

Yes, I have rolled up shorts on under this raingear.

I think I have the palest legs in NZ, btw...

this is a view from about 1/2 of the way up the hill.

You can see Wally's house down below.

I was able to snag some rainy day time to catch up on my writing…but then it was weeding time.

That respite from rain didn’t last long. Alec had cabin fever, so we drove into town in his 4WD Pathfinder aka Nissan Terrano.

Alec says the Japanese put that on a lot of the cars shipped to NZ.

NZ gets a lot of 5 year old used cars from Japan.

The trip into town just happened to be in one of the worst windy downpours at first.  We bought some postcards at the art gallery:

this is Wally's entry into a ukelele artist design exhibit

another artist from the same exhibit

There were also several other interesting items in the art gallery:

these were by Wally

another artist designed this fake book;

Wally was commissioned to do the painting.

Along the town main street--the All Day Cafe:

this shop was guarded by a dog who tried to bite

those that came too close.

square things are old bank vaults.

out to the pier

Teri walking out to end of pier and jetty

Molly on the pier

looking back at the town.

the jetty...I thought this was going to be the vehicular ferry we have to take when we leave...OOPS.

back near the closed cafe.

mangroves

 On the walk about, we saw a few people that Alec knew—Leeza, the owner of the shop that is temporarily the Hokianga Outpost (she had a sweet, Taffy-like dog named Geena), and she lived in what was the banker’s house.

note the "no spray" sign on one property

owned by a Colorado stockbroker who lives here 3 months/yr

and his Israeli artist wife. $NZ 1 million.

view from the house

another view from the house

not really for astronomy fans, but nice try

another teaching moment

explained below:

abandoned...

Library hours for Karen...

the whole town.

When we got back I had the job of cleaning the fridge and unblocking the drainage pipes in the back: success!

A little later Alec and Molly worked at respective computers:

Our town walk had taken 90 minutes, and another set of clothes were soaked, so Molly and I stayed back from the rainy Evening Dog Walk. Molly did find some Australian parrots to photograph:

Molly got an “early” dinner (7:15 …er…19:15).  I got a head start on our 2^nd salmon dinner, with mashed potatoes and courgettes.  When I went shopping early in our stay, I paid the equivalent of  $10/lb for glorious fresh wild-caught salmon, so I bought 5 filets--enough for 2 dinners for Alec and me, and one filet for Alec’s freezer.

it has taken me a while to get the hang of this veggie peeler

OK, I confess: Molly did these.

Molly went to bed early.  I stayed in the house to use the internet for the blog and to book hotel rooms in Auckland for our stop back to return the car and for the night before we leave.

Molly was up dealing with her mosquito bites when I went into the caravan for bed.  I had a fitful nights’ sleep with 3 rainy trips to the bathroom.  On the pre-dawn outing, I heard the tui bird’s complete song—or a fuller version—in two part harmony…two notes at once.  Molly will leave out her recorder so I can capture the sound tomorrow.