Spent two nice days and nights with H's second lot of chums, Richard and Maria on their boat, Monet, on the Marlborough Sounds.
Very easy to get on with, and decent weather, only slightly hampered by the smoke from the Australian bushfires coming across the horizon. And were honoured to be invited to the annual beach party for all the people who own 'bachs' – beach homes, along the sound. About 200 people from small kids to grannies who'd been coming for decades. H here competing in the tug of war, sadly no photo of me trying to catch a raw 'ig' (egg) being hurled at me – luckily it broke as it shot through my hands above my head and the contents landed on the beach rather than on one of my few remaining clean outfits. And I caught a blue cod which was very tasty in panko breadcrumbs as our dinner nibbles. It all ended with an impromptu party at one of the houses, where they drink gin and soda rather than tonic – urgh.
From there it was northwards to Napier, via yet more vineyards in Blenheim for a certain someone. Where H then hooked up with his final chum, Nicko, for a whole day being driven round about 8 vineyards, ending up here for dinner with me and the other wife. Craggy Range a very schmancy place, H def in his element..
We then drove north again to Rotorua, where we had our first chance to wash clothes in our rented cottage – on an alpaca farm!! Reeeesult. They gave us a bucket of alpaca treats to feed them with, very entertaining. Still not sure why the brown one, Shiraz, had such buck teeth, but hey, rather nice to wake up to their clipped furry faces.
And then spent the day relaxing in the hot pools (much needed as I'd managed to put my bloody back out yet again and was struggling to walk at that stage), then nipped up the top of the hill overlooking Rotorua for a bite of lunch. Weird how the food court and hill inside Wimbledon Tennis have the same name as this place – we felt very at home.
Managed to pull off my surprise for Hawksey – dragged him to a specific restaurant in Rotorua, with him moaning that he wanted to eat in – all because Liz Lewzey and Keith were there too – ta da! Good to see some faces from home and have a good chinwag.
Today had a posh old helicopter flight out to a volcano. Clearly, not to White Island which had been on our agenda, but instead over to another volcano for a landing (chilly, with lots of rocks that Liz T would have loved) and then down to the hot pools and geysers ('we say geezer, they say guy-zer') bubbling away on a hillside. We were meant to go the day before but I think our body weight plus the other couple put the copter over the limit so it was just us! For once, being lardy helped.
Lots of different colours and not too much eggy smell – except from Hawksey as ever – bonus.
Off shortly to a 'Maori Experience' – basically a chance to see kiwi birds as there aren't many in the wild – they need to sort that out! And then a bit of Maori history and culture hopefully, likely to be rather touristy but hopefully still worth doing.
And then we are off driving to Auckland in the morning – next instalment from there, before we get our own boat for a week and wifi will be a figment of my imagination only..
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