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| By the time we had finished the current Web-site and the writing and editing of my second book on "Young Dancers on Pointe", we had spent 3 weeks at Aladdin Holiday park. We became friendly with the owners Helen and Bob and on one fine evening they came to dinner with us. The last of the three weeks it simply rained non-stop and we were very grateful to be in our motor home rather than a tent. One day we have had 75mm of rain and the poor tenters were washed out of their tents and were found sheltering in the big camp kitchen. | |
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We spent the last
evening in Helen and Bob’s lovely home, which sits at the top of the
hill overlooking the Holiday Park and Whitianga. Our hosts had invited us
to dinner, which we enjoyed on their fantastic terrace, overlooking
Whitianga and the sea. We spent a very enjoyable evening, which ended with
our new friends walking us back down the hill to our motor home. The path
is steep and leads through a tropical forest and as we came down the hill
the glow-worms, were such a lovely surprise and a beautiful end to a
perfect evening.
<---- the glow-worm path in daylight |
| We left on Tuesday
morning 2nd February and headed of for Thames. I needed another
haircut and as it was so very warm, 30 degrees Celsius I was desperate.
After a bit of shopping we found the next motor camp which had a pool and
a lovely butterfly garden. I liked the pool very much and swam at least
twice a day and as it was so warm, followed it with a cold shower.
We visited the butterflies on Wednesday and they were truly lovely. They also had tropical birds, mostly very small and colourful. The minute we got into the garden Fergus was adopted by one of the big brown butterflies and it would not let go of him. Then it sat on my finger for a bit and eventually we managed to persuade it to sit on a plate full of bananas and have a good feed instead. |
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| Thursday was a life changing day. We got talking to our new neighbour the night before and Robbie told us that he was fighting two kinds of cancer, but been helped enormously by a Naturopath. Robbie had come off all the cancer drugs and is now doing so much better than before. Instead Peter Raynel the Naturopath has given him a herbal medicine, which has according to Robbie, completely transformed his life. Fergus has an enlarged prostate problem only but has to take nasty drugs and I feel very strongly that if there were an alternative then I would prefer it. To cut a long story short, we went to see Peter Raynel on Thursday afternoon and had a very good two-hour consultation with this man. He checked Fergus’s blood and did all sorts of other test, like examining the iris in Fergus’s eyes which told Peter a lot about our diet. Yes you have guessed it we have to change our diet. We were always so proud of the way we eat, as all food is always freshly bought and prepared by Fergus’s fair hand. We have to cut out all wheat, gluten, potatoes and pork. These are the very things we like most. We got given a sheet with everything on it that we can eat and all the things we have to try and avoid. On this sheet are lots of things we do like but do not eat a lot off and so we are in the process of exploring a new way of eating. Fergus was also been given some herbal remedy to take, which he started to take that evening before dinner. It is so horrible that Fergus has to chase it down with some wine. Luckily we are still allowed our daily shared bottle of red wine. A few days on we both feel much better and Fergus seems to regain his normal energy. I am very excited about it all as it will be good for both of us and I might even loose some weight! We can still have all the other things every now and then or when we are invited to dinner elsewhere. We will not become food bores I hope! |   |
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We left Thames after we visited the Mining and Mineral Museum, which was very interesting and then headed for Tauranga. We got to Omokoroa Beach Holiday Park. The chap who greeted us was very rude and by the time we got shown exactly where we had to go we were ready to leave again. So I got on the phone and called Tauranga Tourist Park and asked them if they had any spaces for Saturday. Jenny was very nice indeed and said that they had plenty of room and so we booked to go there on Saturday. The site at Omokoroa Beach was lovely and very clean and also had hot pools, shame about the management. But it was too hot to stay in the pools for long so we went for a coastal walk instead. |
| The park is on the edge of the Tauranga harbour. We have stayed on estuary coasts before but this was very different. We came down a short hill to swampy grassland and then followed the stepping stones across the swampy land and onto a sandy beach. There we were greeted by hundreds of little crabs about 2cm long, rushing about frantically seemingly getting nowhere. We walked along the sandy edge making sure we did not tread on the crabs and came alongside lovely garden edges with picnic spots and little benches. It was somehow obvious that these were privately owned, but it was also clear that one was allowed to walk along the edge of the gardens and rest on the benches, so long as the owners were not using them. It seems that there is a kind of sharing of the foreshore going on. The sun slipped slowly down to the horizon and we enjoyed the walk tremendously. |  |
 Stepping Stones, Omokoroa |
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 Beach walk, Omokoroa |
| We left on Saturday
morning bright and early and moved to our new site called Tauranga Tourist
Park. We got given a lovely space, under a great big weeping willow tree
and right on the edge of the estuary. We even have a little hideaway cove
to have dinner in and as it is sort of almost part of our site I hope we
can hang on to it, without looking to greedy. The estuary is similar to
the last one we visited and is called Waimapu. This part of the estuary
has a lovely boardwalk running along the edge of the coast and at the
point of our hideaway dinning area, it is curving nicely out to sea.
Waimapu Estuary ------> |
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On Saturday evening we took a ride into the town of Tauranga. It started with having to cycle up a rather long hill and I am pleased to say I got up it without having to dismount. Tauranga is quite a big town and has lots of traffic on it’s main street. Luckily there are cycle lanes or I would not have the guts to cycle here. We eventually found the centre and we came down a very gentle hill, not unlike Duke Street in Brighton. It all feels a little bit tacky and Fergus feels that the new town centre and seafront was built by town planers and has not naturally evolved. The seafront is strange too. One parks the car in the car parks along the edge of the sea then crosses the busy road to sit in the cafes and restaurants, with the traffic still rolling past as you eat. Not my idea of a seafront experience. We did however find an old ferryboat called "Kestrel", which used to go from Auckland to Northcote and Birkenhead. This brought back lots of memories for Fergus and we stopped to check that it is the very same ferry. It is and today it is used as a restaurant. As I like boats and Fergus has fond memories of this ferry we decided to go and have our anniversary dinner at the Kestrel. We will take a taxi into town and dress up for the occasion. The diet will have to be on hold for that day! |
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Sunday was a very sad day. We started off with giving Turbo Snail a good wash. Somewhere along the way we bought two things which will make life much easier, one is a magnetic knife rack and the other is a special brush on a handle, which attaches to a hose and lets us soap Turbo down once in a while. The knife rack has eased congestion in the kitchen drawer and made a big difference to the efficiency of running of the kitchen. Then we got down to doing our emails and received a very sad one from one of our closest friends in Brighton. Sadly after a two-year fight with cancer, Mike has passed away and we are both devastated. For the first time we feel too far away to be of any use or support to his wife Maggie. The only comfort is that they have two lovely grown up children and a huge circle of very good friends. We both just spent the day quietly and I wrote letters to distract myself from the pain. In the evening we went fro a lovely walk along the estuary. It starts with a boardwalk, and then follows a grassy walk along the private gardens of the rich seafront houses. Again access is obviously granted and it is an extremely pretty walk. Our spirits rose with the surrounding beauty and we realised that Mike would not like us to mope around but enjoy what we've got. Our return was graced with a most wonderful sunset and I think sunsets over estuaries belong to the most beautiful I have seen so far. |
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