#173 Nomad Diary. 10-16 February 2024. Road Trip. New Zealand North Island. Lingi and Avarn at Hamilton. Huka Falls. House with a View of Lake Taupo. Te Awanga Beach. Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. Our 2 Year Retirement Review. 2024 Travel Plan.
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| Cheese Shop in Kiawaka North of Auckland |
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| A Horse Statue That You Can Climb On. Next to River in Hamilton, NZ Saturday. 10. Drive Dargaville to Hamilton. Arrive Lingi’s apartment with son Avarn. Nachos for dinner. River walk with Lingi. We met Lingi when we were in Wellington at Christmas time. She was visiting her brother at the church there. She invited us to come visit her, and here we are! |
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| Lingy's Leg of Lamb for Dinner! Sunday. 11. Church with Lingi and Avarn. Nice group. Met with locals. Lunch served afterwards. Walk to Hamilton Gardens. Visit with Neville and Lily. Neville is 90, and Lily is somewhere in here 80’s. She had many interesting stories of her life past and present. She moved to Jamaica at age 3 from China. Her mom just died at age 103 in Florida. She and Neville met in Bermuda and married. It was some time in the 60’s they decided to leave Bermuda and settle in New Zealand. They lived in Hamilton since then. He worked at the Hospital and she stayed home with three children. As the children grew and moved away from NZ, Neville still worked. Lily managed their gardens growing flowers and foods. She is known at the church here for her long time hospitality and great cooking and sharing. A year ago they sold their house and moved into a retirement apartment in the city. This is where we visited with them. They are still active as their health allows them. They served us cookies and drinks and talked for more than an hour. It was a pleasure to visit with them and hear of their life together and their love for the Lord. Roast lamb leg for dinner by Lingi. |
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| Lingy and Son, Avarn at Home in Hamilton, NZ Monday. 12. Lingi to work at a baby formula factory 6am. Avarn to school. He's 15 and enjoying his woodworking class. Last year he built a square table suitable for a computer or a cuppa. This year his project is a lamp. We walk 3 blocks to a breakfast cafe. Dinner out together. Lingi picked Rice Rice Baby, a Vietnamese Restaurant. Ice Cream at Duck Island, a popular and unique place. I had miso ice cream and really liked it. It kind of tasted like a salted butterscotch. |
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| Master Bedroom at Acacia Bay House Tuesday. 13. Drive Hamilton to Taup. Stopped at Huka Falls and a nearby cafe for Lunch. Darrell took an hour hike while I sat at the cafe having a cold kombucha drink followed by a cappucino. Darrell arrived and got a mango yogurt smoothie. Grocery shop in Taupo. Eat Vietnamese dinner out. Beautiful house in Acacia Bay with view of the lake. |
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| Walking Downhill at Acacia Bay to Lake Taupo |
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| Darrell Happy With Our Colorful Dinner Wednesday. 14. Morning call to Owen and Esther. Bible class online with English and American friends. Walk down to the water. Cool cafe for mid-morning cake and coffee. Cook early dinner of salmon with fennel seeds, beet salad, mushrooms and carrots. Hanging out at our house. Doing laundry. Booking our last two stays in NZ. Thinking about what we need to do and how we will be turning in our rental car and leaving by cruise ship on March 2nd. |
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| Chocolate Chip Cookies I Made Turned Out Perfect! Not What I Expected! Lol. Thursday. 15. The luxury of doing our laundry a small daily load at a time. I enjoy hanging the clothes outside. It’s mild weather, intensely sunny and long, long days. Darrell made very good pancakes for breakfast. We had bought a giant fresh fig and cut it into our morning fruit. I’m working on this diary today. Darrell is getting started on taxes. We are enjoying hanging out at our house and sharing our pc. Tomorrow is moving day. We anticipate a 2 ½ hour drive to our next stay at Te Awanga. Tonight we have vegetarian nachos planned for dinner. By dinner time Darrell has finished our taxes!! Yay! He’s filed them electronically. Last year we changed state residency from Alabama to South Dakota. We only owe Alabama taxes through June of 2023. That cut our tax bill by almost $3,000! South Dakota has no income tax. As long as we are residents there, we save time by not filing and we save the money that we used to pay in taxes in Alabama. I made chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. They turned out so perfect! Lol. Not what I was expecting, but they were so pretty and delicious that I wrote down my recipe. Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies: 1 cup Edmond’s Self Raising Flour ½ cup almond flour ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon salt 110 grams, 8 tablespoons butter, softened ½ cup brown raw sugar ½ cup scant white sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup chocolate chips With electric mixer, beat together butter and sugars. Add in egg and vanilla. Next add in all dry ingredients and stir in chocolate chips last. Scoop out 24 cookie portions onto buttered parchment covered baking sheet. Slightly push down each cookie dough to half-flattened. Bake at 350 F/ 175 C. Under 10 minutes on buttered parchment. Cool a couple of minutes on sheet, then move the parchment with cookies to a counter to finish cooling. |
| Inside Our Te Awanga Studio |
Friday. 16. Today we stayed at our airbnb house until almost 10am. Our check out time. We packed up everything and did our check out obligations which varies with each rental. And we headed for Napier. The drive to Napier had 2 or 3 coffee shops that we passed by and also a waterfall that we stopped to view. It was a very rural drive through forest and over a mountain range. It’s beautiful and we had clear sunny weather to enjoy the drive. We arrived to Napier for lunch around 12:30. We ate at an Italian restaurant and walked through the shops to the bay. There were cruise ship tourists in town and an Art Deco festival going on. The festival included a bunch of museum quality vintage cars and locals dressed in 1920’s style. After we ate, walked, and shopped for groceries we drove onto our airbnb in Te Awanga. We arrived and moved right into our comfortable apartment on the lower floor of a house. We cooked a nice dinner in our ‘home’ and walked to beach about 2 minutes away. Nomad Notes: I thought about our 2 year anniversary of Darrell’s retirement coming up on March 6th. It is also his 64th birthday. We have been doing our international nomad travel plans for a full two years now. Here is how our travel for these first two years of retirement turned out in weeks spent where: 26 weeks in England, Scotland, Wales 17 ½ weeks on Cruise Ships 17 ½ weeks in New Zealand 17 weeks near Huntsville, Alabama (near son Eric’s family and our 2 sons Samuel and Wes) 8 ½ weeks Washington state and Portland, Maine (with son Jeremy’s family) 5 ½ weeks in Denton, Texas (Darrell’s parents live there with his sister Cyndy) 3 ½ weeks in Canada 2+weeks Florida and Georgia (with friends) 2+weeks US Road Trips, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, South Dakota, etc. (extended family) 2 weeks Other Europe: Spain, Belgium, France, Portugal This is close to a full two years and a close approximation of our weeks spent where. I think it will be interesting to see how our next two years turn out! For 2024, This is the sketch. Some is planned with stays secured and some is still in the planning phase with air tickets to purchase and dates to determine. Our son Jeremy is moving his family to Brasilia, Brazil. We are planning to visit them there. March: 2 week cruise Auckland to Sydney 2 weeks in Australia including friends in Brisbane and Cairns April: Cruise Sydney to San Francisco May-Jun11: Huntsville, Alabama Jun- early July: Denton, Texas and maybe a road trip with the folks and sister Cyndy July-early August: Brazil August- September: Huntsville, Alabama Oct-early Nov: still planning Nov 13-Dec 18 Cruise Ft Lauderdale to Argentina Dec 18 and following to Jeremy’s in Brazil. |
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