For our first night we had no idea how long it stayed light as we did our best to stay awake to get on the time zone, but lasted only until 9:30. We snuggled into our sleeping bags, with Mandy and Kevin on the upper bunk and Crosby and I on the bottom one. Mandy …
Author: redpathatease
Cuckoo for Kuku
The adventure began with Crosby driving up to the house with his partner, Toby. We settled in for the day, introducing Toby to the beach with a walk between rain showers, some game playing, then getting serious with finishing our packing. We took it easy with a pizza dinner, but capped it off with Kevin's …
The Next Adventure
Actually, it will be three adventures in one! My daughter, Mandy, turned 30 a few months ago so I decided we needed to do something remarkable to commemorate the event. It took a bit of talking, but I finally convinced her partner, Kevin, that he should join us. We have talked about going to Ireland …
New Zealand Epilogue
What an amazing, awesome inspiring month this has been in the "Land of the Long White Cloud". We have traveled from the far end of the south island, including a jaunt over to the "third island", Stewart Island, to Auckland on the north island and many, many parts in between. There hasn't been a place …
Auckland – the final day
This was our one full day in Auckland, which we both agreed would be enough. At least for me, I've thoroughly enjoyed our time in the countryside and our freedom of having the car. Being smack dab in the middle of a bustling city seems so incongruous with the rest of our time here. It's …
On to Auckland
We rose to a purposefully slow start to the day as our gracious hosts said there was no need to rush out. And as the only thing on today's agenda was to drive from Whitianga to the outskirts of Auckland to turn in the rental car, we putzed along this morning. As I was fixing …
Whitianga
We both had a wonderful night's sleep in this cute cottage. We had bit of breakfast then slipped on our bathing suits with clothes on top and headed out about 8:30. Today's calendar had a visit to Hot Water Beach first and foremost. A half hour's drive had us arriving at the beach, finding the …
Coromandel Peninsula
Or... How I celebrated my 65th birthday. Definitely one for the memory books. We made quick work leaving this morning, zipping down the hill from the house where we stayed and headed straight to the bakery we spotted earlier. It was a busy place so we knew that was a good sign. In we went, …
Thames
Another easy start to the morning. Fixed breakfast, packed up and soon we were on our way. Yesterday the director's wife told me to make sure we went to Tommos bakery in the morning and get their cream buns. She raved about them and even showed me a picture so I would know exactly what …
Hobbiton
We allowed ourselves a slow, easy start to the day. I woke up early even so, which turned out to be a great opportunity for me to have a video chat with my daughter, her boyfriend and my best friend, who was kind enough to fetch them off the Arizona trail as a large storm …
Redpath At Ease 