#159 Nomad Diary. 4-10 November 2023 Begin New Zealand Roadtrip.Shop Op Stores.Church Friends Welcome.

Darrell Cooking Pancakes in Our Takapuna Airbnb

Lake Parking Lot with Boats on Cars

Racing Boats on Lake Pupuke

Flowers in Milford Beach

Flowers in Milford Beach

Boats and Racing Teams at Lake Pupuke

Green Tea and Nut Tart in Milford Beach

Spring Flowers in Milford Beach

Street of Shops in Milford Beach

Road Trip Items. Most Purchased at Thrift Stores Called Op Shops.

Saturday. 4. We walk to the lake and watch some noisy boat racing. Go to a French pastry shop. Go to Op/thrift stores to get items for our road trip. “Op” stands for “opportunity” and is seen often here in charity run thrift stores selling second-hand or previously used items. Lunch is a turkish burrito.

Morningside Church of Christ in Auckland

Longtime Members at Morningside Church of Christ

John and Lynda. Preacher and Wife from Morningside Church

Lorie (spelling?) from Morningside Church

Sunday. 5. We drive about 30 minutes to Morningside church. We park behind the building. It’s an older building but well kept. We begin meeting the people who have arrived. The preacher discovers that Darrell can preach and he offers Darrell a turn to speak and Darrell says yes. We are invited for lunch with John, Lynda and Laurie. We sit and visit with them for quite a while. They moved here from South Africa a couple of decades ago and raised their kids here. Laurie moved here with his family from Zimbabwe. They say this place is safer than South Africa for now. They have made their lives here. At the church I also met a woman of 70 or 80 from Samoa. She’s lived here most of her life. Her easy name was Faye which she uses in place of her more difficult Samoan name. My mother’s name was Faye and when I hear that name, I think of my mother. 

Resting in Our Takapuna Airbnb

Packed to leave our Takapuna Airbnb.

Lunch Stop in Hamilton on Our Road Trip

My Veggie Dish at the Chinese Place. Yum!

Darrell's Beef and Cabbage at the Chinese Place. Yum!

Beautiful Spring Scenery Driving South on Motorway 1 in North Island. 

Stop to View a Waterfall

Tropical Plant Selfie

View from Our Airbnb in Taupo

Inside Our Comfy Taupo Airbnb

Across the Street from Our Taupo Airbnb

Monday. 6. Check out of our Takapuna airbnb and begin road trip south. Darrell is doing well driving, but I’m still a bit nervous about it. Through the day I get much more relaxed with my rider side and getting out of Auckland into more rural motorways. We follow motorway 1 going to Taupo. The scenery is beautiful green farmland with distant mountains and summer green. We go to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and the food was excellent. I use Google maps and reviews to look for restaurants. Sometimes it turns out well, and sometimes our choices can be disappointing. After lunch the road gets a bit more curves and going into large valleys. There are beautiful masses of yellow flowers contrasting with the greens. We stop to see a waterfall and take a short walk. We get to our airbnb with views of a marina on one side and a mountain and farm on the other side. It’s a quiet street. We unload our car and we are having tea and deciding about where we might go for dinner. A storm begins and the rain is pouring down. I’m so tired and we decide to cook and stay in. Darrell makes pancakes for us. It was a bit of a trick, but he pulled it off! I slept very well. 

Scenic Drive and View of Lake Taupo

Darrell Getting a View of Gollum's Pool at Tawhai Falls

Tawhai Falls is Gollum's Pool

Close Up of Mosses on a Tree Trunk

Makatota Viaduct. North Island Main Trunk for Trains in Early 1900s.

Mangawhero Falls. Gollum's Pool and Ithilien

Woodsy Walk

Coming Down a Mountain with Valley View

Old Bridge at Mangaweka is Now Pedestrian and Historical

Our Airbnb Behind the Farmhouse in Mangaweka

Wysteria Blooming on A Magnolia Tree at Mangaweka Farm Airbnb

Inside Our Mangaweka Airbnb

Mangaweka Farm is Cows and Sheep at Our Stay

Scenic Farm Roads Drive Near Mangaweka

Scenic Farm Roads Drive Near Mangaweka

Scenic Farms Drive in Mangaweka

Signpost Helping Us During Our Scenic Farmroads Drive

This Cafe in Mangaweka is Very Good!

Darrell's Reuben Sandwich All From Scratch!

My Vegetarian Lunch of In-Season Asparagus and Mushrooms. A Spinach Smoothie too.

Inside Dukes Restaurant in Mangaweka 

Dukes Menu Cover

View of Mangaweka From a High Trail

The Big (population 1800)Town of Taihape's Sign a Few Miles from Mangaweka (population just under 200)

Look Out We Climbed To in Taihape

Ruth and Jim Our Farm Airbnb Hosts in Mangaweka. In Their Kitchen Cooking Us Dinner.

Dinner With Ruth and Jim at Mangaweka Airbnb. Lamb, Asparagus,Sweet Potatoes,Potatoes,Baked Tomatoes.

Rhubarb Dessert Served with Ice Cream

Recipe for Rhubarb Dessert in an Old Cookbook of Ruth's

Ruth and Jim's Farmhouse Dining Room

Tuesday. 7. Check out at Taupo. We drive around the massive Lake Taupo following our motorway toward Mangaweka. There’s beautiful mountains, climbing roads, more yellow flowers and scenic overlooks. The land and mountains are changing scenery. We go through some brown mountains with no green. We eventually get to a lush green farmland. Especially around Mangaweka there are mountains that look like upside down cones and have ridges coming down the sides of the mountains with thick green grasses and trees. We go to see a couple of waterfalls and takes some short walks. We find our way to our Mangaweka airbnb for 2 nights at a cow and sheep farm. The weather has turned cold and our host brought me an extra wool blanket! It’s about 55 degrees give or take a few. It’s often overcast and raining occasionally. 

Wednesday. 8. Our host Ruth invited us for dinner at 6pm. Today we drive through some rural farmland. The roads are curvy, tight and some are gravel. The mountains and fields draw us in to keep driving and stopping to look at the valleys and the lay of the land and farms. We see evidence of landslides, called slips here, as we are driving these winding roads. We had lunch at Duke’s in Mangaweka and that was very good homemade diner food. Dinner at our hosts house was so much fun. We talked to each other about our lives, our families, our different governments and travel. Jim is 65. 

Our First Fuel Fill-Up is at a Vending Pump.

Scenic Drive. Mountains,Clouds,Cows

Lunch Stop at Indian Restaurant. Darrell's Butter Chicken and My Yellow Dahl Served with Rice and Garlic Naan

Waikanae Beach

Looking from Waikanae Beach Back Toward Town

Waikanae Beach

Waikanae Beach

Waikanae Beach Flowers

Roomy Wellington Airbnb

Wellington Airbnb.

Succulents at Wellington Airbnb

Thursday. 9. Stay in airbnb in Wellington. Wow, the roads up the hill to our airbnb were curvy and tight. Our place is great! I’m tired. Darrell walked from our airbnb to grocery shop. I made soup ready for dinner when he returned. 

Picnic on Our Car Dashboard as We Wait in the Ferry Line for Boarding

Picnic in the Car Ferry Line in Wellington

Driving onto the Ferry in Wellington

On the Ferry and Waiting to Leave Port

Picture on Wellington Ferry

Unloading Our Broken Ferry in Wellington

Went to Lookout in Wellington After Unloading From Our Ferry

Our Quickly Booked Airbnb in Upper Hutt After Our Ferry Had an Electrical Problem and Unloaded Us Back in Wellington

Upper Hutt Airbnb

Nice Plants at Upper Hutt Airbnb

Call with Grandson Quinn age 3

Call with Grandson Owen age 2

Owen's Sister Esther about 3 months old

Friday. 10. This was our first time to take a car onto a ferry. We were told to arrive for the line up beginning at 10:30am. The ship was to sail between 1 and 1:30. We sat in the car line from 11am to the boarding of the cars around 12:30. We picnicked in our car. The ship was all loaded and then we were delayed leaving. We were getting updates about every 10-15 minutes from our captain telling us that we are still delayed. About 2 pm, the captain said that the ship’s problem could not be resolved for this sailing. We would be unloading the ship, and being rebooked on a later ferry. We tried to get this same day, but the company just said that they would send us our new sail time after we were off the ship. We drove off the ferry back into Wellington at 4:30. Around 6pm Darrell got his email for our new ferry sailing tomorrow, Saturday at 1pm. We had just finished our time at a park with a lookout over Wellington. Now we sat in our car in this parking lot and both looked for a stay right now. I found a reasonable airbnb about 30 minutes away in Upper Hutt. We agreed on it and I booked it. We waited a few minutes for confirmation, and the host said yes and the place would be ready in 30 minutes for us. Yay! It turned out just right for our night. Now we know all about this ferry and will be back to do it again tomorrow. 

Nomad Notes:  I am writing this on November 30th from notes I wrote on November 7th. I’m feeling at peace and calm in myself and with Darrell. It’s a good feeling. I’m comfortable resting for a mid-day nap. Darrell has a cold with some sinus drainage, but he’s feeling okay. We are beginning our road trip and living 4 months in New Zealand. We spent our first week in Takapuna in North Auckland. We have our housesits, airbnb and booking.com reservations set through January. Darrell has been keeping track of all of our details on a very big spreadsheet! Our stays are then listed on our shared google calendar. I manage the airbnb’s and he manages the housesits and booking.com. He drove the car first and conquered the oddity of driving on a different side of the road opposite to the US. His biggest issue was changing the use of his left and right hands for turn signals on the right now and wipers now on the left. He did great driving in Auckland traffic with some new road rules for us. I helped watch out for him, but I may have been more nervous than him. I am waiting to drive in a place were the roads have less cars and I’m more relaxed about it. The names of places in New Zealand are a mix of English and Maori names. Maori are the original people of New Zealand. New Zealand is two islands: North and South. There is a constant car ferry between the two islands that takes 3-4 hours. The biggest city on North Island is Auckland and the biggest city on South Island is Christchurch. There are loads of small towns. We leave Auckland and are driving down the motorway through central North Island toward Wellington where we have a ferry ticket to take us to South Island. We are staying 1, 2 or 3 nights along our way as we enjoy our road trip. Our house stays are longer and will give us time in a regular house with the pet cat. Along our road trip we are stopping to look and take pictures as we want to. Our driving times are usually 2-4 hours so we have plenty of time to travel slow and stop and look. We like waterfalls and short hikes so we seek these out along our way. Our Op shop picnic basket and cooler are coming in handy for our road trip. There are picnic tables and public restrooms well marked in towns and along the roads. We also use google to seek out lunch restaurants when possible, and maybe dinner restaurants too. Breakfast is a mix of us cooking our own in mini kitchen spaces, some provisions given by our different hosts, eating a quick cold breakfast with coffee, or eating out. When we got to Mangaweka, we were too early to check in at our farm airbnb and we went a campground restaurant closeby. The young man running the empty place with one chef in the back was from Tennessee. We talked briefly to him while we also ordered a light dinner. He came to work for a year. Here he was a river raft guide and a general worker at the campground. Being still early in the season as it is springtime, he’s doing more campground work than river rafting at the moment. He has fallen in love and planning a wedding in April here in New Zealand. Cool. Later in the evening he emailed Darrell as we were having tea at our airbnb. I had left my purse in the restaurant and our nomad card with our emails was showing in a clear pocket right inside the flap. He wanted us to know he had it for us. Darrell went straight over and got my purse! A crisis for me was averted! And it was and is true that many stories while here in New Zealand are of people being honest and good to each other. This man had also commented on this quality in this country when we were talking earlier. We are calling the grands at least once a week and the video calls are a great way to say hello and get a little bit of visiting in. Our calls are through wifi on IM messenger for now.