Any Old Excuse!

It is hard to believe that we have been in New Zealand for a year now. The past year has gone by so fast, and there have been so many highlights. On the other hand, it does seem such a long time ago that we were living in the UK. That might have something to do with the fact that after our world travels in 2004/2005, we only spent nine months in the UK before making the ‘permanent’ move to NZ.

To celebrate our ‘One Year in NZ’ anniversary, we treated ourselves to a night away. Our choice of accommodation was a wagon. I hear you thinking, “Have they gone mad down under? A wagon, what kind of wagon?” Well the wagon is a luxury replica of an 1870s style 'wild west' wagon. See http://www.wagonstays.co.nz/.

Denis and Ray, our hosts, came up with the idea and built the wagon themselves. It had all the mod-cons (flat screen tv, heat pump, tilting bed, etc.) you can imagine, as well as being an environmentally friendly place. Well, what a lovely place it was, and what a fantastic dinner Denis cooked for us. The fruit & veggies were all home-grown and home-cooked.

After dinner we had a bath. Well, I hear you say, nothing special about that. But this bath was special! It was outside, in the open air. And it was great! We stayed in the bath, enjoying a bottle of Lindauer Fraise, until the water started to cool.

Breakfast was great, too. Pete was a little disappointed when we booked, to find out that we would not get a cooked breakfast, but the homemade muesli, the fresh muffins and bread more than made up for that. All in all, we had a great night away and were very spoiled. And to think all this, was only a 15 minute drive away from home; great!

After check-out on Sunday, we did not drive straight home, but took a detour, to see some places we had not previously driven through. Just before Governor's Bay we stopped at a rest stop, and happened to see a few ‘locals’ bring in the catch of the day. I believe this is a Mako shark. The man on the right owns a restaurant in Sumner; the shark might even have ended up on someone’s plate that evening.

On we went and of course we had to walk along the pier at Governor’s Bay, and back again. (What exactly is the point of piers that do not have ice cream kiosks at the end of them?) We then continued to Sumner, where we planned to have an ice-cream at the kiosk at Scarborough. However, over winter this place has turned itself into a poncy eatery, and they only sell pre-packed ice-creams. Not good enough for us, so we got back in the car and drove to an old favourite of ours: ‘The Sign of the Kiwi’. Good to see that there one can still buy a lovely hokey pokey ice-cream.Yummy! A great place to end our celebrations!