KeriKeri and Claus

Claus's orchard in KeriKeri

On our exploration up the Northern Island we have made many great stops and met many wonderful and interesting people. One particularly wonderful and interesting couple were in a town called KeriKeri. There names were Claus and Moara. Claus is from Sweden and Moara from Scotland. They live on an orchard where they rent rooms from their home and grow oranges. Claus is a burly man with a grey beard and a Swedish New Zealand sort of accent. He had a pretty dry sense of humor, and was very friendly. Moara was so loud and so friendly! The house was adorable as you can see in the above photos. But the best part about it was Claus- and the Christmas tree he had set up in his living room, decorated and everything all year round! If Santa Claus is true and living we met him last week in KeriKeri.

Well it just so happened that the night we were renting a room from Claus, Moara was having dinner guests. We had just made the trip to the grocery store and had decided to cook our own dinner to save money. We were all a bit weary of being in their way while they had their dinner guests. I mean they had their nice linens out, candle's set and everything. But they never asked us to leave, they just went on with their cooking. Every once in a while Moara would yell at Claus, and tell him to "Mash the Potatoes" and "Peel the turnips" and Claus would just say "NO." And Moara would squeel and yelp, and then would tell him to do it again five minutes later. The potatoes never were mashed- I think they ended up baking them. Their guests arrived at about 8:00 pm- their names were Bill and Diane. Maora kept saying to Maegean and I, "give Diane a snuggle, b/c its her birthday." Moara, Claus, and their two friends, Bill and Diane, all had dinner and then asked us if we would like to join them for dessert and a visit. We agreed and before we knew it Bobby was lighting the candles on Diane's icecream cake and leading everyone in the Happy Birthday song. We all laughed and visited for a few hour and had a lovely time. It was a very very memorable evening spent in KeriKeri.

Kahoe and the trek to Mordor!

We stayed at this wonderful little hostel called Kahoe Farm Hostel. It has been in the family for 5 generations and is run by a really sweet couple. There is a villa you can rent behind the main hostel that is absolutely beautiful. The husband is from Italy and his name is Stefano. He cooks incredible food. He made us pizza and homemade pasta two nights, and breakfast another. He is very friendly and Bobby and Johnny even went to play "futball" with he and his son and some other locals. They really seemed to enjoy themselves. The above picture is from the back porch of the villa. Absolutely stunning views of the green hills and grazing sheep! Quite lovely!

We went on two really awesome hikes while staying in Kahoe. One was called the Dukes Nose. Above is a picture of Bobby and I at the very tip top! It was about a 7 hour hike total! We hike through the "bush" for quite a bit, and arrived a the foot of this massive boulder that actually looks like a man's face, hence the name. There is a chain bolted into the rock to help the climb to the top. It was a little bit slippery but so much fun! Once at the top you have a bird's eye view of the country. You turn one direction and you see massive waterfalls, another is the ocean, and then green mountains all around. It was such a beautiful view! Unlike anything we have ever seen!

Paihia

These are pictures taken from our porch at our hostel in Paihia. It is beautiful here. We woke up this morning, made breakfast and walked down the street and rented kayaks. We took those out for a few hours and then had lunch. It was really fun. A little bit cold, but sunny and beautiful. Today it was about 65 degrees in the sunshine. You can't really ask for much better weather than that! It will be fun to get to kayak in our swimsuits rather than our fleece though....and to get to jump in and swim!

Bobby and Johnny at a beach in North Auckland. We were pretty excited to see the water. This was the day we went to get our IRD numbers so we can get a job. This beach was just up the street.

Jordan

Bobby and Natalie on our drive from Whangarie to Paihia. We made a quick stop to stretch and take in the views. We hiked around for a little while and found a cave. We went through to the other side and found ourselves in this really beautiful little cove. The sun came out, and stayed out too! Long enough for us to roll up our jeans and take our shoes off! We had some pretzels and nutella and really enjoyed ourselves!


















Whangarie falls.

Well, we bought a car. Named him Jordan, and with his help made a bee line out of the city! We will post a pic as soon as we get one. Jordan is an 89 subaru legacy wagon. Perfect for the four of us. It was 900 NZ dollars~ which translates to about 650 US dollars. We named it Jordan after the poor bloke who showed us the car, he had quite the personality as he taxied us all around Auckland trying to find our hostel in the rain, with a million questions flying at him- all along with two back flat tires! We had the car inspected and other than a "leaky boot" and shoddy tires it was a great car. We had the "boot" replaced- and two new rear tires. Every day has been in an adventure since we drove the car away on Monday- five minutes down the road Maegan pulled on her viser to block the sun, it popped right off. The next day Johnny was driving and got a ticket for speeding in a school zone, it was quite humorous when the officer asked him his occupation. He's a teacher. When we asked how school zones are marked the officer replied with "Aww ya know ya just dont drive too far over the speed limit when ya see a school, thats all really" Hmmm, good to know. Bobby was driving the next day and we were all startled to hear a screeching on his side, we pulled over to find a large piece of plastic dragging along the bottom of the car, we pulled it off, shrugged and threw it away. Mae and I thought we should strap it to the top for safe keeping, but the boys wouldnt have it. Today was pretty unadventurous as far as the car goes- other than driving a manual on the left side of the road up a mountain while its pouring rain.

It has been fantastic to get out of the city. Posted are pics of a waterfall we hiked to in Whangerie pronounced Fungary. On our way from Auckland to Whangerie we stopped at a cheese factory too! Whangerie itself was nothing spectacular, but the drive from their to Panhia (where we are this evening and tomorrow) was like nothing Bobby and I have ever seen. Winding roads, green hills with sheep and cows grazing, and ocean on the other side, with mountains on the horizon.

I will post more tomorrow with pics of the drive to Panhia. Our plan tomorrow is to try to find a job here in Panhia- its a bit of a long shot but worth the try.

We've arrived!!!

We just arrived in Auckland today(Thursday)the 14th at 6am, that would be 1pm Texas time but its Wednesday there. So far everyone is cool and friendly. Auckland reminds Natalie and I of Portland, Oregon. Its a little rainy, but the sun came out later and we walked to one of the ports where they keep several of there competitive sail boats. We are staying at a hostel called ACB (Auckland Central Backpackers), its a cool place reminds us of the "dorm days" back in college....That makes me sound old!?!!? So far we have eaten a "Kebab" it was great, the grumpy man that made them for us slapped away Maegan's hand because she reached to grab some extra napkins....it was funny and we learned somthing NZ people love there napkins! More likely it was just that grumpy dude.