#169 Nomad Diary. 13-19 January 2024. New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand House Sit. Cats Charlie and Lizzy. Tomatoes and Peaches. Church Friends. Beach Walks. Paritutu Rock Challenge. February North Island Road Trip Planning.
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| Paritutu Rock in New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand |
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| Climbing the Stairs at Paritutu Rock in New Plymouth, New Zealand |
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| Looking Down the Steep Stairs and The View Below While Climbing Paritutu Rock, New Plymouth, New Zealand |
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| Back to The Beginning at Ground Level at Paritutu Rock |
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| Darrell Enjoying Taking Care of Malcolm's Tomatoes Saturday. 13. Today we climbed Paritutu Rock in New Plymouth. It was a challenge! We made it more challenging by parking a mile or two away at a seaside playground. We walked along the pathway to a restaurant I had chosen for lunch. We had a nice fresh seafood lunch then walked on to Paritutu Rock. Wow! What a climb! It was exhilarating and fun going straight up with built stairs and then the stairs changing to chain holds with a nearly straight up rock path. Going up and coming down we passed a few people and used wider parts of the rock climb to pause for passing. The views at the top are amazing. Mt Taranaki can be seen from here, but had clouds surrounding it’s peak on this day. The blue of the ocean is intense and beautiful. We did afternoon grocery shopping and returned to our place quite tired and happy. Darrell grilled out our chicken and I cooked farm veggies for a familiar comfort meal for us. I made Darrell potato salad, green beans, and tomatoes. I had a sweet potato and then we shared a pan of cooked silver beet greens. Darrell watered the tomatoes in two green houses here. He collected ripened and almost ripened tomatoes and cucumbers. Tonight on TV was the final of The Great British Bake-Off and we enjoyed watching it. Sunday. 14. Darrell cooked pancakes for breakfast. We topped them with fresh strawberries and blueberries and I added an egg. We drove 15 minutes into New Plymouth to have a post breakfast coffee and pastry and to go to an ATM for cash. We enjoyed sitting outside at a cafe for a while. We talked about our February travel as it is coming together in our coordination of planning it. We arrived for church a few minutes before 10am and began to visit with others. We have been to this building three times in the past week and I’ve been practicing people’s names and learning how the friends and families are connected. Because we’ve been here so many times and we spent a long visit at Chris and Michelle’s house this past Thursday I feel like I’m getting to know many of them pretty well. We go for lunch at Asia and Caleb’s house. They have 5 kids ages 12 and younger. They are Mila, Reuben, Cyrus, Nova and Casey. Caleb’s parents Patti and Kevin live in Wisconsin and have come here for months at a time for the past 9 years. Caleb moved his family here from Rotorua where they lived for many years. We enjoyed visiting all afternoon with this family. They homeschool as do many of the families at the this church. We noticed that many families at the church in Wellington were also homeschool families. Patti and Kevin who are 70 years old homeschooled their three children in the past. It’s an interesting trend that Darrell and I were faced with 30+ years ago. Some of our siblings were choosing homeschool options as a way to spend more time and teaching influence with their children. We ultimately chose to send our kids to public schools with the exception of 2 separate years for 2 of our children. Lunch was delicious as Asia served a build your chicken sandwich or salad with her homemade sourdough bread! After our long visit we went back to the church building for evening class on Ecclesiastes and then on to our house by 8pm. We were exhausted and happy with all of our new friends and conversations and thinking. I fed both cats after 9pm and Lizzy let me pet her while she was eating. This is a ‘win’ for me and for Lizzy! |
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| New Plymouth Seaside Bridge Frames Mt Taranaki on This Clear Day! |
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| Night Time Display at Light Festival at a New Plymouth Park, Taranaki |
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| Night Painting Class at New Plymouth Night Festival of Light, Taranaki Monday. 15. We slept in until 6:10am! Lol! We have our more intense ab routine workout today as we do 2 days ‘easier’ and 1 day ‘more intense’. Still doing DDP YRG (yoga for regular guys) recorded routines for 10+ years before breakfast. There is a heavy rain falling constantly and even now at 9am as I write this entry. Our two cats: Charlie and Lizzy were here early and waiting for Darrell to serve them their morning wet food. They hung out for a while. Charlie has stayed all morning with just a short time outside. He has come around for petting, conversation and affection. Lizzy doesn’t stay as long. Last night I fed them both after 9pm and Lizzy let me pet her while she was eating. Tuesday. 16. I returned for a second massage with Kim at Sublime Beauty. I will book one more massage while I’m here. Kim is a skin specialist and a massage therapist. If I lived here, I would go and get all of her services! We enjoy a mix of quiet and conversation of our different lives yet with their similarities, and our viewpoints, life challenges and wins! Darrell found a place and got a nice haircut. We returned to a pizza place we enjoyed a couple weeks ago. We ordered the salmon pizza today and calamari. It was a nice date lunch on a covered patio at Pekaren restaurant. A two hour afternoon call with my close friend Laura in Tennessee. We spend time praying together, encouraging each other through Bible discussion, and catching up with our going on’s. Wednesday. 17. The cats weren’t here first thing in the morning causing us concern. We set up for our floor exercise routine and after we completed it, Lizzy arrived. Darrell fed her. She ate more than normal. A few minutes later we were fixing breakfast and Lizzy comes into the kitchen and throws up all that food. She proceeds to throw it up into 3 piles! Bleh!! I get busy cleaning up the gross stuff. Darrell IM’s Irene and Malcolm again. Meanwhile, Charlie still isn’t here. Malcolm and Irene respond with details and ideas of how to see if Lizzy is OK and where we might look for Charlie in a particular barn. We have breakfast. Lizzy is recovered. She ate a normal small amount of food and went out to the flower garden. Darrell goes to look for Charlie. Darrell came back without success. We get to our online Bible class a few minutes late. As soon as our hour-long class ended, Charlie lingered in and wanted his breakfast! He’s a full 3 hours later than what we knew as his normal. Oh well. He’s here. My prayer has been answered with his arrival. After lunch we put on shorts and went to Fitzroy beach, less than 15 minutes from our house. We got into the ocean just enough to stay standing and get the shorts wet. The surf was rough and the tide was coming in. Kids were playing in it, and I was not ready to play yet, but I’m getting closer! Lol! We took a nice long walk in the surf along the beach back to our car. Coming back to the house, we rested and read. We made a couple of decisions on where to stay, the properties and number of nights on our February North Island road trip. It feels good and easier to have worked through our research on what is available, narrow it down, share our solutions with each other and then decide with agreement. Dinner was left-overs. Pizza for me and nachos for Darrell. Evening Bible class in New Plymouth and an event in town afterwards called Festival of Lights. We followed people after Bible class to the park entrance and a big group of families and kids walked through the night time light displays with music and hundreds of other people. It’s free. It’s every year. The weather was just perfect for it! At one place on our walk we said goodbye and took a different path that the kid group was skipping. Darrell and I walked through all of the displays we could find. I was amazed at how enjoyable it was! I couldn’t remember ever having an experience just like this one. We even saw a night time painting class that I took a picture of. It looked like a lot of fun for me! We got home after 10pm, late for us! The cats were here. Yay! Thursday. 18. Cats were here early today. No wondering where they are! Lol. We did ‘Diamond Lite’ ddp exercise routine, a more difficult one. I am so happy now that I can do this and push myself. In the past, I really had to work at showing up and getting through the routine. Ok, this is one reason that Darrell turned the Diamond Cutter into our ‘diamond lite’ because we rarely got through that other one. I would always quit 30 or 40 minutes in. We had a nice breakfast together. Since being here, we’ve tried about 4 different sourdoughs. Today’s was a sesame one and we both highly approved! I spent some time putting Irene’s tomatoes into her freezer. I like doing that and knowing that she will appreciate it! |
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| At Our House Sit Enjoying the Deck Near New Plymouth, New Zealand |
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| Talking to Grandson Owen, 2 yrs and 4 mos, and His Daddy Eric, Our Oldest Son |
Friday. 19. Morning routines. A call with my Tennessee friend Laura. An afternoon haircut. Darrell did our grocery shopping while I got my haircut. Ate and Italian dinner at Pekaren restaurant. We have gone back here three times since living here! We went for a beach walk on a rocky coast. I got into the ocean almost up to my waist! Lol.
Nomad Notes. This week we spent considerable time solidifying our February travel. We booked our stays within the regions we have selected to travel to. When we leave New Plymouth on the 30th, we plan to do a road trip up to the north tip of North Island. We will usually be staying 3 nights per stop. From our stops on our road trip, we hope to enjoy and explore around the area we are in. We have planned our Sundays in locations where we know of a church of Christ to worship with. We have our stays booked through February 24th. We are leaving Auckland by cruise ship on March 2nd so we have Feb 24th-Mar 2nd to look for and book.
I’m pondering the value of my pondering. Thinking on spiritual concepts from scripture and reflecting on them with considerable time and space. I tell God, “Thank you God for knowing me before I knew myself. For knowing me and making a path for me even as I am growing into my older self and learning about who I am, and who I am becoming. Loving me with ancient wisdom and truth of creation and eternity.”
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