From Cape Reinga we south on the 1st of January to Kerikeri, with two very important detours. First we stopped for another swim at 90 Mile Beach (which was crazy cold compared to the first swim, don't know what the deal was there) and second, at Mangonui for the best fish and chips in the country. The half crayfish'n'chips option was tempting but slightly out of the price range!
Once in 
Kerikeri we met up with Bastiaan and Pip and then headed over to Bas' friend Andrew's place (well, his parent's place) where we hung out with him, his parents and their friend and his fiancee Bridgette for the night. The spit roast was delicious and having the chance to have a shower and sleep in a real bed again was great!
After a bit of sightseeing around Kerikeri the next morning we battled the traffic back into Auckland and then went to see Avatar with Dad. Very lame plot but impressive computer graphics skills nonetheless! The next leg was Auckland to Wellington with a night in Taupo at Adrian's aunt and uncle the Hancocks, followed by a few hours at the National Army Museum in Waiouru. It's one of those places I'd driven past a hundred times but never been in - so finally we did! The war medals were really interesting as were the bits and pieces about some of the minor wars etc. that NZ had been involved in. We hung out in Wellington for a bit - well, Adrian hung out, I had to go to work for three days... But after that brief sojourn it was back up to the sunny north. We drove up to the Coromandel on the 8th for Liam and Kelly's wedding in Pauanui on the 9th of Jan.
We met up with all Adrian's St Pats mates on Friday evening and then before the wedding we helped Liam work off his nerves with a bit of a hit around on a tennis court. It was a beautiful wedding, right on the beach and they both looked so happy which was lovely. The reception had great food and we all had a wonderful time dancing around and listening to the great speeches. The song the St Pats boys sung about how Liam and Kelly met was a highlight and I'll try to post it when this website lets me!
After the wedding we spent two nights at the campsite at Hot Water Beach, further north in the Coromandel. That place is excellent! Supposedly one of the top ten beaches in the world as voted by Lonely Planet, when the tide is out it uncovers some natural hot springs which you can dig into and make your own natural hot pool. We checked it out on the first evening, just to see what it was all about, and then in the morning we went down again trying to get a spot. It was pretty packed in the morning with all the kids (low tide was about 10am) so it was difficult to get a spot but we managed to get our feet into the incredibly hot sand for a bit! During the day we headed up to Hahei and Cathedral Cove which was beautiful, and then it was back to Hot Water Beach for our third attempt at making the perfect hot pool. Our reconnaissance mission paid off and we had the perfect hot pool which was nearly too hot to sit in! It's a fight to constantly build up your sand wall against the incoming waves but it's a good workout all the same!
From Hot Water Beach we did a small tiki tour around the Coromandel peninsula on the way back to Auckland - complete with hokey pokey and goody goody gumdrops icecreams, yummmmm. Once back in the big AK we did a walking tour (one of Adrian's most favourite things...) of North Head and had a fabulously extravagent dinner at Kermadec (extravagent because we completely forgot to use the Entertainment Card, d'oh!). And then it was over! Adrian hopped back on a plane to London via Singapore and I went back down to Wellington after a few more birthday celebrations with Mum, Dad and friends.
A holiday to remember - here are all the photos!
We're all going on a summer holiday, no more worries for a week or two (or three, or four...) Adrian and I have just finished up the most excellent summer holiday tripping all over the North Island and staying in some of the most beautiful places I think you'd find anywhere. It was so great to get out to the beach and laze around in the sun - and even though I didn't really deserve a holiday after only a month back at work, it was very much appreciated! Adrian turned up back in NZ in mid-December just before Veronika and Phil's wedding (which was lovely).
After the wedding, the whole Mazur clan headed up north to Paihia for Christmas while I worked from the Auckland office and then had Christmas at home. We cooked our ham Nigella Lawson styles which involved boiling it in coca cola of all things - and before you wrinkle your nose up in disgust it was actually really delicious! On Boxing Day I headed up north to meet up with Adrian (stopping, of course, at the Bendon outlet shop on the way up...I love that place) and then on the 27th we started our road trip in earnest. Stop 1: the supermarket where we bemoaned our lack of organisation (already) by not taking more food from the family coffers and thus having to spend nearly $100... Ah well, you can only live and learn can't you!
Stop 2: the Department of Conservation (DoC) campsite at Otamure Bay (Whananaki). We headed off full of hope that depsite the time of year, it couldn't possibly be completely full - but yes, after a long, twisty turny drive that's what the sign said... But, ever optimistic, we smiled and insisted that our tent was absolutely tiny (which it was) and they, very kindly, managed to find us a half site to inhabit. Yay for DoC! The campsites were incredible! People had brought everything from: full gas burner BBQs, tomatoes still growing in buckets, fridges, double layer air mattresses - and a group not far from us had even set up a kitchen area using industrial strength scaffolding! It was camping, but definitely not as we were doing it...
The place was absolutely lovely th
ough; white sandy beach and even enough waves to do a spot of body surfing. Adrian was over the moon to discover that across the road they were showing movies in the woolshed - $3 and bring your own chair! It was Transformers, which wasn't the most appealing choice, but sitting in the shed definitely improved it! After a couple of days lazing around by ourselves, working hard on our tans, and appreciating all the absolutely beautiful stars we could see every night, Lisa came and hung out for a while. It was great fun to see her and chat about Oxford times.
From Otamure we headed right up to the northern-most campsite in New Zealand at Tapotupotu. It was completely different to Otamure - as the DoC ranger said, "things are a bit rougher up here"... One thing which was immediately obvious was the wind - after setting our tent up using every single guy rope available, it became quite clear that we were going to have to move it from our prime seaside location to a more sheltered spot back from the beach. It was just as well we did because even after having moved it it still was so windy it flattened the tent right over our faces several times throughout the night!
Tapotupotu is only 
two bays over from Cape Reinga and is in the middle of a wonderful area of national park. We did two walks, one south towards Spirits Bay, and the second, on New Year's Eve, to Cape Reinga itself. It should supposedly have taken us five hours but we monstered it in only three and a quarter - legends! It was a pretty full on walk, all up and down (mostly up...), but we distracted ourselves with reminiscing about the highlights of the previous decade (each other, obviously...). It was Adrian's first time at NZ's northernmost point (well, not exactly the northernmost point, but the legendary one!) and luckily it was a stunning day so we could see the meeting of the seas and the pohutukawa tree that has never flowered...
Not content to only do one bit of sightseeing that day, after the walk we went to the Te Paki giant sand dunes. They are absolutely awesome! You rent a boogie board from the guy at the bottom, and then after some muscle-trembling hikes up the dune, go as fast as you possibly can down! I'll try to get one of Adrian's runs from his camera so we can upload it here. After the dunes I was all, let's go for a swim, it's not far... Walking in our togs, barefeet and towels, it finally took us (at least) 30 minutes! Whoops... But, luckily, Adrian's first swim at 90 Mile Beach was everything we could ask for - it was so warm and the waves were huge! Definitely one of the best swims I think I've ever had. And then, thank goodness for Remuera Tractors because one of them picked us up on the way back and took us all the way back to the car...
New Year's Eve night was excellent; especially considering I thought we were so exhausted it would be a miracle if I saw 9pm even... We spent the night chatting to the friendly folks (from Hataitai!) who had parked up next to us and then headed down to the beach to listen to about seven different countdowns to midnight. We launched our sky lantern off into the ocean (finally, a prevailing wind that suited us!) and saw off the decade in one of the most beautiful spots I could imagine.
Part two coming soon!
I know I've been extremely slack - but what
with camping in the far north (as in, the faaaaaar north), Christmas,
getting back to NZ, trying to finish my journal article etc. etc., it's
been a busy last little while.
But, before Adrian and I head off on part deux of our 'let's see as much of the North Island as possible' camping trip, here are the graduation photos.
It was an absolutely brilliant day, perfectly capping off (hahaha,
geddit??) my year in Oxford. It was so lovely to share it with everyone
too, including Mum and Dad and my fellow NSEPers - hopefully an NSEP
reunion isn't too far off!
After leaving Oxford, we went down to London and stayed with my friend Pam in Pimlico for a month before I had to leave to head back to NZ. 'Pimilco Pam' - it has a nice ring to it... I had a great time being a haus frau in London and Adrian especially enjoyed the 20 minute commute to work (as opposed to the four hour saga from Oxford).
We managed to get out and see all sorts of sights and sounds, like the Tower of London and the filming of Never Mind the Buzzcocks with Jeff and Sara, partying with Jeff and Ruth, and lots of markets when Mum and Dad were here - the Columbia Flower Markets, Spitalfields, the Borough Markets, the Up Market...the list goes on!
I would have uploaded a photo to this post, but completely forgot that NZ has capped broadband usage and completely ran down the flat's internet account so have no capacity to play around with big files or anything... So, you can check out the photos here instead!
Well, Wally #1 (Amelia) is back in Wellington (a Wally in windy Welly, how appropriate...) for the time being (see photographic evidence) and Wally #2 (Adrian) is staying in London to rake in those ££££s...
Ah, the long distance relationship, how fun. Not.
But, until the visa fairy decides to bestow on Amelia (a) a European passport of some kind (b) a whopping great PhD scholarship and a student visa or (c) a working visa to the UK, that's the situation we're stuck with... But, to make things more interesting, we've decided to have all sorts of holidays in exotic locations to make the year go by just that little bit more quickly. Holiday #1 is going to be held in the beautiful region that is Northland, followed by a quick jaunt to Wellington and the Coromandel, while Holiday #2 at Easter time is tentatively planned for South America - I can't wait!
So, while the spendthrift and the miser are apart, these blog posts might become a bit sparser as each of us stays in lock-down, saving money mode, but there will still be hopefully at least a post a month whenever the urge to spend $$ becomes too much! (And chances are very, very strong that that will be Wally #1 rather than #2...).
So, to get things started as we mean to continue, I've got some graduation and London photos that I'll put up soon, look out for them before Christmas!
Kerikeri we met up with Bastiaan and Pip and then headed over to Bas' friend Andrew's place (well, his parent's place) where we hung out with him, his parents and their friend and his fiancee Bridgette for the night. The spit roast was delicious and having the chance to have a shower and sleep in a real bed again was great!
From Hot Water Beach we did a small tiki tour around the Coromandel peninsula on the way back to Auckland - complete with hokey pokey and goody goody gumdrops icecreams, yummmmm. Once back in the big AK we did a walking tour (one of Adrian's most favourite things...) of North Head and had a fabulously extravagent dinner at Kermadec (extravagent because we completely forgot to use the Entertainment Card, d'oh!). And then it was over! Adrian hopped back on a plane to London via Singapore and I went back down to Wellington after a few more birthday celebrations with Mum, Dad and friends.
