Tuesday 3rd April Waipu Cove

Tuesday 3rd Apri

Going home today, but first we had to take Eliza to her Kindy group just down the road:

Here we are in the car park:

This is foyer:

This is inside the kindy itself with all the stuff:

She was quite settled so off we went, back to Kihikihi.

Monday 2nd April Waipu Caves

Monday 2nd April - Waipu Caves

In the afternoon we went for a drive with James and Julia up to the Waipu Caves. Here we are at the entrance.

Limestone gravestones by the car park.

Up to the entrance to the bush.

Walking in to the cave entrance.

At the start

This was as far as we wanted to go

Looking back to the entrance

The on we went onto the bush walk

Here is the Guardian of the Forest

Forest Ferns

Up the hill

To the rocky hilltop

Monday 2nd April Waipu Cove

Monday 2nd April

The weather has been perfect every day - blue skies, blue seas and little wind.

This morning after breakfast we went down to Waipu:

... to visit the museum

It was a sad and inspiring place all at the same time. Sad, because thousands of Gaelic speaking Highlanders got evicted from their lands and homes to make way for sheep and inspiring when you read about their two major journeys to find their "Promised Land" under the leadership of Norman McLeod.

Heading back out of town we passed this nice old building now a medical centre:

Sunday 1st April at Waipu Cove

Sunday 1st April

James cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast along with the croissants that we bought yesterday. That and the coffee made a great start to the day.

While John and Lyn went off to mass in the local church the rest of us went for a walk down to the rock pools off Shelly Beach just south of the main Waipu beach:-

The rock pools themselves were great - starfish, cockabullies, shrimps, hermit crabs etc

Here is Eliza with a Cushion Star that we found:-

Later we walked back up over the hill to the main beach and watched Eliza swimming in the pools left by the tide:-

Saturday 31st at Waipu Cove

Saturday 31st March

We had to get up early to go down to the Waipu Carnival - a fund raiser for the Waipu Primary School. Heaps of people and cars there.
In the middle of it we found this steel band:

It was a beautiful day and crowds of people turned out to enjoy the weather and all the market stalls in the Carnival and down the main street. We bought some Bromeliads, croissants for breakfast and Mary-Ann bought a nice necklace at the Waipu Museum.

On the way home we had a coffee at the Waipu Cafe and Deli. I had a really excellent savoury scone:-

We had lunch back at the house.

Later, John, James and Ee took the kontiki down the beach, but didn't catch anything:-

I went down to the beach to find Mary-Ann who had gone for a swim:-

James and Ee came down to do surfing

James surfing:-

A view of the Hen and Chicken Islands, and to the right - a wee dot - Sail Island.

At the very end of the beach is a beautiful Pohutukawa tree

In the evening we walked along the road to The Cove restaurant for dinner:-

Had a great meal.

Later that night we sat around John's fire pit and roasted marshmallows.

Driving up to Waipu Cove

Friday 30th March

On Friday morning we got up at about 8:00am to drive up to John and Lyn Mellsop's place at Waipu Cove. We were a bit concerned about navigating the Auckland traffic which has a notorious reputation at Easter.
It was good all the way up to Mercer where we took a break to have a picnic lunch:

From there the traffic coming south of Auckland was horrendous - two lanes of snail's pace as far as the eye could see.

We got all the way across the Harbour Bridge and passed Silverdale when we struck our one and only queue down to tthe northern end of the new Orewa tunnel. After a 3/4 hour drive we finally emerged and began to travel freely again and got here - 815 Waipu Cove Road:

The house at the back.

Nanas and Eliza at the back flat.

We went for a walk down on the beach just before dinner and found a dead Little Blue Penguin:

Lyn said that probably the mothers had gone out to sea looking for food, which in the current conditions had been difficult, and not come back. She said that a number of dead chicks had been found as they had left their nests looking for food and their mothers, and then just died of hunger. This one looked quite well fed though!