Happy New Year

Nick & Bill enjoying (I think) each others company once again.
Beautiful day at Waihi Beach

The past few weeks of our return to NZ have flown by so fast, it was the end of another year before we knew it. Welcome into 2017

Lighting Chinese lanterns and sending
messages off to Pat

Within two days of returning, we found the vehicle that ticked almost all of Bill's boxes - a 2005 Suzuki Vitara. Very similar to our CRV that we owned before heading overseas, except a bit bigger. And a V6 so will guzzle the gas (Bill has told me I'm not to put my foot hard down on take off, but it sounds sooooooo good :))
That all sorted, we headed down to Waihi Beach to catch up with our three kids, my three brothers, partners and families to have a final farewell to Mum. Meeting Shannon's partner Andrew for the first time, he coped well with the Nicholas Clan. We had a stunning weekend, very reminiscent to the weekend we celebrated Mum's 90th 4 years earlier. As sad as it was to say our goodbyes, it was lovely all being together again. Mum would have loved it. With Mum's passing, not sure when we will all get together again as she was the pull (centre!!!!!!) for us all.

Jacky & Bill doing a little tiling. 

Rocky & Jacky decorating the "Christmas Tree"

One week later it was Christmas at Nick & Jacky's in Wellington. Arriving a few days before, in time for Bill to help Jacky do the tiling in the kitchen to almost complete the renovations of the kitchen/dining and lounge areas. They have done amazing transformation of their home in just over the year that they have owned it.
Joan (Bill's mum) flew over from Nelson to join us, along with Rochelle's Daniel later that night from Perth.

Jacky, Bill, Me, Claire, Rocky, Joan, Daniel, Shannon & Nick
Lovely brunch to start Christmas day

Daniel bowling to Bill
(With being an Aussie, we told Daniel no "Underarm")

With the large deck they have added on, and Wellington putting on a beautiful sunny day, 9 of us (including Jacky's sister Claire) enjoyed a lovely Christmas brunch before playing cricket in the park at the end of the road. Just the right amount of food, wine and exercise for the day.
Boxing day was the perfect for some to tube down the Hutt River - entry into river just across the park. Bill, Nick & Jacky, Rochelle & Daniel had a pleasant couple of hours travelling down toward Lower Hutt, making friends with some of the local ducks on the way. Apart from Rochelle's frozen feet and a few with sunburnt legs, they all seemed to enjoy the trip.

Preparing for entry into the Hutt river

Nick, Jacky, Daniel and feathered friend

Bill, Daniel, Rocky and feathered friend

Daniel's mate Kano (Jordon) flew in from Perth a couple of days later to travel around the north island with him checking out all the best surfing spots NZ has to offer over the next two weeks.
Nick, Jacky and Shannon headed north for New Year, Shannon to Andrew's family at Matarangi on the Coromandel and N&J to Waiheke joining old friends from Nelson.
Poor Rocky drew the short straw and saw the new year in with us here in Wellington with Geoffrey the cat. Pretty exciting wasn't it Rocky? particularly watching the Rolling Stones playing a concert when they were in Cuba earlier this year. Mick, Keith & Ronny looking pretty wrinkled & thin but still playing and singing like they were 50 years younger than they are. Pretty amazing musicians.

One of the walks over the xmas break with Joan
and Shannon. Walked out to the radar dome on
Hawkins Hill (amazing views over Wellington)

Bit confused as which direction to take on the Petone foreshore

Bill doing a bit of flashing!
Nick, Jacky with help from her brother Joe had re roofed the house
just before we arrived.

We are pleased to be back in our own country without all the crowds, catching up with family and friends. Still waiting for more of summer to show, hopefully it's just around the corner. A few swims before we head south would be great. We are here in Wellington till the end of the week, crossing over back into the south island and to Nelson on the 7th January, the day after Rocky flies out back to Perth.


Hoping the earth settles a bit more (the 5.5 shake the other day was a reminder our country is still settling).

Aussie & Home to NZ

A memorable sunset on one of our final days in the UK

The Winchester cathedral concert primarily produced by the choir as a purist presentation, meaning it was a technical production with the organ and trumpet having minor roles and the choral presentation not being a popular or recognisable piece.  Soooo it was an experience I enjoyed but wasn’t the big organ & choral fest filling the venerable cathedral that I hoped for.

Rottnest Island

A busy final week in the UK for us as we downsized our belongings, negotiated a suitcase swap to cram our belongings into, sadly attending Kath’s mothers funeral, and a delightful day out at a farm park, seeing the animals and farming practises of earlier times.

Our final hrs in the UK saw us up at 5:50 am to drop our car back & fly out of Heathrow landing at Singapore 12 hours later to a sweltering 30C with suitably crippling humidity. What a shock, having never struck that tropical heat on our travels, and the last 5 weeks in the UK thickening our blood.

Singapore was in Xmas festive mode making a spectacular spectacular of it, Orchard Road shops trying to out do each other with massive themed decorations. Obviously this  glitzy charade didn’t

Guess What!

sway me, opting as usual for black socks for the kids Xmas, (grinch)  ……………

Still a 5 hour flight to Perth, uneventful, and no good movies to watch, we arrived declaring our dirty farm muddied boots, which a lovely bio security lady whisked away returning them soon afterwards beautifully cleaned, quite embarrassing as we knew the NZ guys will be hot on that, but caught out  with the Aussy’s vigilance.

Rochelle was waiting patiently for us as we don’t stand to queue and by the time we cleared customs we were at the forefront of the next flight in, but Rocky new our relaxed demeanour and expected little else.

Need to be a little careful.

A comfortable 30C with no humidity had us grinning from ear to ear, or was that from just seeing R after so much time. I think we all had a damp smudge in the corner of our eyes…

Perth is turning out to be a lovely place. By all accounts their winter has dragged out, but we have arrived as it all settles and have scarcely seen a cloud in our first week, with temperatures in the early thirties, beaches to swim, mostly English spoken, it is all so welcome & familiar after our time in the northern hemisphere, (that’s not to say we haven’t had fun)

R is taking leave to settle us in for 2 of the 3 weeks we will be here and has proved a very able guide with prison tours, town walks, bush walks and island visits filling our days so far.

These are Be aches.

The antipodeans are surely a chosen people, in chosen lands. No longer are we looking at the people thinking how lucky we are to live in NZ, we are looking at these people and thinking, yes we are all a lucky people here down under.

Should we ever be able too, an extended visit of Australia may well be in order.

Rochelle and partner Daniel have a lovely home in the suburb of Innaloo, Scarborough, R is quick to point out she is only the lodger as this is Daniels foray into the home market, nevertheless he is tolerating the lodgers family well, and we are enjoying his company, and met his family on two occasions, slightly younger than ourselves but workers like ourselves with many things in common.

Daniel catching some surf

Kinda havin Fun.

Job Done

Have been able to fit a dishwasher into the house this week that went well,(Rochelle knowing I could “easily plonk it in”) helped by having a few tools lent by D mate, making the past reliance on my Swiss army knife for the last few jobs a thing of the past.

Little birdies

We are in the final week of our stay here now and planning our return to purchase a car ASAP in Auckland, scouring TradeMe  looking for “The Car” to get us through the next while as our motorhome plans are on the backburner till the new year when we hope the summer market forces have simmered down.

Seen a few of these now.

Still struggling with no tablet as we had dropped it having been damaged since we sold the van, and using borrowed devices, a huge inconvenience, hopefully will be restored with a new screen before we leave.

Our day of departure saw us on the beach at 8 30AM taking in some more of the stunning beaches and climate before packing up once more to fly to Auckland, 5 hours away and arriving at 6AM the next day, hiring a car and straight into scouring the car markets albeit a tad early, having to peer at contenders through locked iron railings. Our first day was not successful but did run into our friends Don & Dale at the Ellerslie Car Fair.

Lifes a beach !

Deserved Beer

After a catch up and a hard sell from Don trying (in vain) to off load his lads car to us we wended our way over to the North Shore for a catch up with Wayne & Kates clan including Amanda from Switzerland having arrived a few hours after us. Wayne’s selection of home craft brew (putting many craft breweries to shame, in my opinion) was most welcome as was the family catch up, before retiring too our most welcome bed.