Our first week back in NZ has gone by like a whirlwind. Cindy and I left winter in Austin and arrived to summer in New Zealand. For the most part temperatures were close to the same. However, we were treated to a “Tasman Tempest” and for our first 3 days we saw nothing but rain (6” or more) and winds (40kts). The good news was that the boat was safely tucked away in the BlueFix boat shed, where most all the work we had wanted to have done was completed, and we set a time to launch the boat. The bad news was that with all the rain there wasn’t much else we could do - except prep for our land touring trip to the South Island.

Before leaving Opua, we were able to have brunch with our friends from S/V Waiora, who now live in KeriKeri. We picked up our rental car only to find that we could not take the car from the North Island to the South Island on the ferry! The customer reps took over and quickly set us up with an inter-island car rental, which sounded great except it means that we will have to turn in our North Island car where we board the ferry in Wellington, pick-up a South Island car when we leave the ferry in Picton, turn in the South Island car when we return to Picton to take the ferry back to the North Island, and get a North Island car rental when we arrive back in Wellington for our return trip to Opua. We have been assured that there will be no issues moving all our stuff out of the car and onto the ferry, etc - we’ll let you know how that goes! I surprised Cindy by not starting any boat chores, allowing us to leave on our land touring trip a day early!

Our first stop was Orewa Beach/Red Beach just north of Auckland so that we could have dinner with our friends from S/V Arbutus, who are now living on their boat and working in Auckland. We went on to Taupo on the shores of Lake Taupo, a large inland lake, where we got to see Huka Falls and a local geo-thermal area, as well as the Wednesday night yacht racing out on the lake. We later learned (when we visited the Ta Papa Museum in Wellington) that the lake is the crater of a very old volcano! Our final stop on the North Island during our dash to the South Island was Wellington, the capital city. We spent 2-1/2 days in Wellington, including touring the Oscar winning Weta Workshop to see how they provide all the props, makeup, effects, etc on movies like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Avatar, etc., going on a walking tour of the city, a ride up the cable car and downhill walk through the Botanical Gardens overlooking the harbor, and tour the Ta Papa Museum, among other things. If you judge how good a museum exhibit is by the emotion it evokes, Gallipoli: The Scale of War (New Zealanders in World War I), is off the charts! We were also fortunate enough to find friends from S/V Moondancer in the marina and have dinner with them before they left on their return voyage to Alaska via Hawaii.

Next up - a ferry ride across the Cook Strait to New Zealand’s South Island.