#170 Nomad Diary. 20-26 January 2024. Our Final Full Week of Our Longest Ever (Month-Long) House Sit. New Plymouth and Driving South Along the Coast. Historic Tupare Gardens. Challenging Mangorei Track to Pouakai Reflective Tarn.
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| Evening Time Beach in New Plymouth About 12 Minutes From Our House Sit |
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7 am Double Rainbow Seen From Our House Sit Deck
Saturday. 20. Mid-morning we go to help others to move Ginette. I have the location incorrect and we get there 40 minutes late and the first load and most of what she’s got is loaded. We follow and help unload. Darrell goes back with the guys to load the bed and bring it over to the new place. We finished at about noon. We enjoyed the beach in the evening. Sunday. 21. Church in New Plymouth. Afternoon at our house. Evening worship and out to dinner with Chris. He and Michelle are planning to be in Alabama and other southern states in August-October. We talked about the possibility of meeting up in Alabama then. Monday. 22. A rainbow could be seen from our living room and we went out on the deck to photograph it. I get my third massage while here. I have enjoyed Kim’s massages and my time to relax with this therapy. In the afternoon we go to a local strawberry/boysenberry farm and get a ‘real fruit ice cream’. Managed the tomato plants in the two small hot houses. Managed the small peach tree as I’ve been saving peaches from a bird! I’ve also been putting tomatoes into the big chest freezer as requested by Irene. The peaches I have also sliced and stored into her freezer. |
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| Beach Just South of New Plymouth Along the Coastal Route. This is a River Running Through the Sand Into the Tasman Sea |
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| Opunake Beach Tiny Jellyfish Stranded by the Tide Tuesday. 23. Slept until 6am! Morning routines: cat care, exercise, breakfast, laundry, coffee and planning. It’s one week until we leave here on Tuesday January 30th! We took a coastal drive following the coast south of New Plymouth. We stopped at a 3 or 4 beaches along our drive. The weather was cloudy and were on the coastal side of Mt. Taranaki. The mountain had clouds around it. Some of the beaches were covered in large grey round rocks and boulders. A few people, looked like dairy farmers mostly lived between the highway and the coast. We came to Opunake and went to the beach. There were families camping by the sandy beach. We took a walk out onto the beach and enjoyed the rocky cliffs on one side. We saw tiny jellyfish on the sand. When we left there we drove up to town and had a ‘real fruit ice cream’. Real fruit is put frozen into an extruder machine with vanilla ice cream and served soft in a waffle cone. We really enjoy it! It usually costs about $4 USD. |
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| Tupare Garden Flower |
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| Tupare Garden Flower Detail of Plant in Above Picture |
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| Quails Nest Restaurant View Near Tupare Garden and New Plymouth, New Zealand Wednesday. 24. Morning at Tupare Gardens. It’s beautiful and worth the time to walk around and enjoy! It was mostly installed in the 1960’s by the owners of 30 years. They lived into old age in the 1980’s and 1990’s! Their garden was internationally acclaimed and visited by many people. It was later in possession by British National Trust and then turned over to the locals to manage. There’s a lovely picnic area by a river with swimming allowed and it’s all free! We ate lunch out at Quail’s Nest Eatery. We’ve been there twice now. At 6:30 pm we attended Bible class with New Plymouth church of Christ. We’ve been enjoying our time with this nice group. Getting to know the names and spending time together visiting and studying. It’s been enjoyable and they are so kind and friendly. I had a few personal notes to deliver to some of the people there. Sunday is our last time with them and we are already feeling the sadness of parting. At dinnertime, we put our older slices of sourdough in a french toast batter into the refrigerator to grill in the morning. |
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| Really? I'm Going Downhill After 2 hour and 30 minutes Climbing Uphill |
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| Beautiful and Exhausting Walk |
Thursday. 25. Darrell called his mom after our fabulous french toast breakfast. Today we drove closer to Mt. Taranaki to hike up to the Pouakai Reflective Tarns. I didn’t realize how far or how challenging it was to be. Our arrival to the Tarns pond was less than a stellar reflection because of the overcast sky. The path was about 4 miles one direction of plank built pathway. It was an increasing climb of just over 2400 feet in elevation. It was mostly forest covered and shady. Also the day was cool and maybe up to 70 degrees F. The great thing about our return was that it was all downhill walking. The wood board walkway made this long and difficult climb possible. I am to grateful and thankful we could do it and we did it. It pushed me to my limits as my toes were sore and it was just a long walk. The views are spectacular. On a clearer day that mountain would reflect as I’ve seen in other people’s pictures. That’s good enough for me. We didn’t expect to take such a long walk and didn’t get to lunch until 3:30. We ate a good meal at a coastal seafood place. We went by the grocery and then back to our house to recover! Lol. Back at our house we fed the cats, got the dried laundry off the clothes line and took care of the tomato plants. I want to watch the ‘Great Kiwi Bake-off’ show beginning tonight.
Friday. 26. Woke up with sore calves! Did our morning stretches with some relief and recovery. Calling friend Laura today. Recovering from yesterday’s hike. Working on my diary. Doing laundry and enjoying hanging clothes out to dry. It’s sunny and a bit clearer today than yesterday.
Nomad Notes.
Time this week to think and discuss our giving and donating. We know and think about being richly blessed in more ways than we can list dollars on a spreadsheet!-- health, finances, US benefits now and those blessings passed down from generations, friends, family, etc. Touching base with our spiritual values of giving and receiving and having the spirit of generosity, gratitude and purpose are all important to us.
Our longest house sit ever of 26 Days! We have enjoyed this one. The benefits have included: a fabulous location and a summer month here in Taranaki, a beautiful house with flower garden and view of Mt Taranaki, fresh garden vegetable and especially the tomato plants to enjoy and care for, two nice and friendly indoor and outdoor-going cats, very comfortable living accommodations in the house, 12 minute drive to the ocean. I would love coming here again to this house sit and to visit our church friends.
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