The Belgian Bloke Goes Boating in New Zealand

We honestly never really knew what each day would bring in my beautiful New Zealand. 

Yesterday, prior to our 1am flight from Auckland, you would have found us out in Mercury Bay with Peter, Christine and Michael Kirker.  They put him in the  driver's seat as we wandered all over the bay, pausing at the famous Cathedral Cave before bouncing off across a most stunning sea.

My Jade Pendant, Created by Jayme Anderson

Hei Matau is a jade carving in the shape of a highly stylised fish hook typical of the Māori people of New Zealand. They represent strength, good luck and safe travel across water..

It took a long time to find the jade pendant I loved enough to take home with me this time but I have it now ... a small piece of New Zealand to take away with me.

Jayme Anderson's work can be purchased online at the Hokitika Craft Gallery.  Although it's better if you can just pop in and just get a feel for the piece that is yours.

Gert gifted me this exquisite piece of Marsden jade. 

But Wait ... there's more!

Christine's lovely brother, Bruce, has loaned me both laptop and internet connection so here's the post I wrote earlier and stored on the usb stick.

There's talk of a boat and Cathedral Cave and all kinds of things so I'll post and run ...

And so we flew … north from Dunedin to Christchurch, then up again heading for Auckland, city of just over 1.5 million people.  

This 5-week journey home has been a journey into all kinds of intensity.  There has been the overwhelming reality of returning home after 8 years away and then this avalanche of incredible experiences gifted by family and friends. 

It has been a journey I was warned not to expect too much of but it became a journey that was much more than I could have dreamed of or imagined. 

And it hasn't stopped … that intensity.   You see, this time Auckland was partially about finally meeting my half-brother, Rob, and his family too.   A lovely man that I'm so happy to welcome into our family after all these years.  

Then, after lunch with Rob, the same friends who had eased us back into New Zealand all those weeks ago arrived  to gently slow us down and get us ready to leave this country I love so well.  We are spending 3 nights at their summer place and it is surely a little bit paradise here at beach-side village on the Coromandel Peninsula

You can't begin to imagine how much we've been fitting in here because we are without internet and I haven't been able to write but I have taken an early morning walk alone with my camera, visited Hot Water Beach – where you dig your own hole in the sand and relax into thermal water. Peter and Michael introduced us to the Shakespeare Bay lookout too. 

And then I faded, so ridiculously fast, into an afternoon nap that got me back on my feet in time for another New Zealand feast with Christine's extraordinarily lovely extended family.

But as I write this I'm realising that one of the huge challenges on this journey has been the fact that recording more than 1/5th of it has been impossible.  I couldn't write up all the good people we have met, shared meals with, nor all the food eaten, and then there are all the experiences I never ever want to forget. 

This morning finds me sitting at the dining room, in a welcome cross-breeze, table while Christine and Peter take care of us all.  The rain has stopped and humidity is high.  It's early-morning-18-celsius, and birdsong is exploding in through the open doors.  The Purangi River is out to my left, just a few metres away, and I can hear the conversation two kids are having as they paddle past.

We're located in a beautiful  little settlement called Cooks Beach, the place where Tahitian explorer and master mariner, Kupe first landed in about 950AD.  And where Captain Cook arrived back in 1769.  There is so much more but we're off … heading for Whitianga via the ferry and I'll load this at an internet cafe there.

Up North ...

I spent an hour or more writing a blog post about where we are now, way up in the north of New Zealand ...

We caught the ferry over to Whitianga only to learn that the internet cafe had closed and here I am, at the Information Centre, with no USB port.

On the USB stick in my pocket, I have the blog post and photograph, the one that where I attempted to capture the ongoing deliciousness and intensity of all we're experiencing here in New Zealand.

We're back with the friends who welcomed us into New Zealand, relaxing at their beach house in the Coromandel, almost exhausted by the incredible kindess we've experienced during our time in this beautiful Antipodean world of mine.

It's been bliss here, so much more than I could have dreamed it might have been.  So. Much. More.

We fly soon.  I believe I will simply spend the rest of the northern hemisphere winter blogging stories and photographs from New Zealand. 

See you once we're back online.

Christmas Day in the Land DownUnder...

Christmas Day has already arrived here in New Zealand, 12 hours ahead of our Belgian world ... and day has dawned the deepest blue, down here in Dunedin.

Some exquisite gifts have been exchanged and as I sit here writing, the delightful chaos of Christmas Day preparations is going on around me.

A Granita dessert has been made by Katie, Sandra has peeled the new potatoes, Gert is putting together the Salade Paysanne too.  The Pasta salad was whipped up last night by Sandra, and she's throwing the Turkey roast into the oven just now.  Tim has cut up plates of cold ham and a chicken will be roasted later.  

I was the pavlova girl but an evening out on one of the many hills around Dunedin, with two of my oldest friends in Fiona's beautiful house, means I'm moving a little more slowly than usual this morning.  It was an evening that requires an entire blog post really ... so special it was.

I need to peel carrots but wanted to wish you the loveliest of Christmas days

Till later.