Whangarei

We had more adventures over the weekend. Friday started off by meeting up with an old friend from Des Moines. We met John Sullivan in Des Moines back around 1994 through John's brother George. Last time we saw John S was in Colorado around 1998. John was in Auckland over the weekend to visit his girlfriend Wendy who is a Kiwi. We went out for a nice dinner and drinks. John is our first official "I am in the area, lets get together" visitor.

On Saturday we went to the Auckland Boat show. Everything from motorized kayaks to john boats to huge motor and sail boats were represented. There was also all the props and tackle you could ever need. To John's disappointment, we went home empty handed.

On Sunday we drove north a couple hours to Whangarei (pronounced 'fun-gar-ey'). Wh in Moiri is pronounced as an 'f'. This was new territory for me but John had been up there for day trips for work. We stopped at the Whangarei Falls (picture 3). At the top of the Falls, there were some kids swimming and jumping from the trees. If you look at picture 2, about 3/4 of the way up the tree you will see a kid standing on a branch. They were jumping from here into the river and making a pretty good splash. John took a swim at the bottom of the Falls and met the local eel who was big and slimy. Thankfully I was watching from the picnic table.

After the Falls we headed a little further North to Matapouri Beach (#1 picture). This beach would be in one of my top NZ beaches that we have been to. The beach area is very picturesque and there was some pretty good surf as well. The waves were big enough to give you a good knock down if you weren't watching.

Not much is up for this week besides work. I have started an adult ed cooking class. A Italian lady that moved here recently from Italy is teaching it. We made fresh pasta last week and are making pizza from scratch this week.