Comings and goings

Now comes the sad part since the van plan is coming to a close :( After leaving Rotorua we cruised up the coast to Tauranga for a look before busting back to Auckland. Was a fabulous day in Tauranga/Mt Manganui - neither of us had ever been there so was good to see what it was all about. We saw a Destiny Church billboard! haha! ate HEAPS of sushi and went for a walk on the beach and up the Mount a bit - once again... NO SURF! ugh. then it was back up to the big smoke. so ended our last day in the van together :( sad times
the next few weeks were a little nutty and em and i didn't really spend them together all that much. she was staying with her friend ange and i with lauren in completely different parts of the city. i got completely and utterly lost when going out to laurens once. haha! but otherwise navigated the city pretty well i thought. caught up with a few more people who have relocated to the land of orcs. did some exploring and shopping and went to a few films in the italian film fest. nothing amazingly exciting.
lauren and i did do a weekend trip to the coromandel which was awesome. the sunniest hottest weekend ever - got to bust out the new togs. there are some advantages to the city :) we went to hahei and cathedral cove and ate hot chips at whitianga. stayed illegally in a reserve up some peninsula. ate yummo food in coromandel itself, visited a butterfly house in thames where the butterflys liked my yellow t shirt, did some walks and more gravel road driving. found some rad kauri trees just outta coromandel town which i recommend. and finished the weekend off by stopping at the miranda hot pools for a good soak. gave us a taste of the coromandel with a nice mix of relaxing and doing.

Cathedral Cove

So sunny!

Making friends with butterflies :)

the next week i became an expert on newmarket - where can i park for free? where can i get internet? those kinds of things. went to a few movies in the italian film fest at the rialto which was a good time killer. halfway through the week i relocated to my friend janelles house who, in remuera, was within walking distance of newmarket. em stole the van for that weekend as erwin had come up to see her off and they went up north for a bit. i felt quite wierd not having el capitan as a constant companion. i have become unhealthily attached to that vehicle :)
and then it turns into a return journey....
i left auckland and em and went back to rotorua for a few more days with mel, steve and phaedra. then continued down to wellington for labour weekend with my friend laura. on that voyage i did manage to get stung by a pesky bee that flew in the open window of the van. grr!! then it was back to blen. and i started work on tuesday. at 8am. oh no! reality shock!!! if only the van plan could go on forever............

Family Times

Phaedra eating her first ever birthday cake :)

the weekend of oct 7th was a momentous occasion coz it was my neice phaedra's 1st birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! cool to be there for her milestone. so we cruised into rotorua for some home comforts at my sis mel and bro in law steve's house. steves bro's matt and jimmy and steve's parents were staying there too so it was a full house! therefore we offered to sleep in the van... which reminds me.. the bed in the van is AMAZING!! its so comfy and has no roll together and despite what many of my (male) friends like to think - we did not spoon!!! anyhoo... em and i had previously talked about how when we went metro to visit people we were often offered the blow up air mattress/the couch/the fold out couch etc... we always took people up on these offers but really, the van was so much more comfy i don't know why we did! so the van was a good place to be
went out to lone star on that friday night for dinner. jimmy works for lone star in chch so we went as anonymous diners and had to rate our experience. i have to say the service was pretty shit. and by some unfortunate circumstances me, jimmy and em, all veteran hospo workers, were all sitting together at one end of the table so the poor people didn't stand a chance against our combined critical eyes :) when we got home we busted out aladdin as turns out steve's fam are big fans too! i'm sure it ws annoying for everyone else when we were all reciting the lines and singing along to the songs. but really.. thats what disney movies are for!! oo and heres some disney trivia for you... guess who the voice of aladdin is? for all you 80s kids out there that remember full house... its dj's boyfriend! haha! scott someone-or-other
so dawned saturday... THE BIG DAY!! phaedra was LOVING all the attention from her attentive extended family. i have to say that she has matt and jimmy wrapped around her chubby little fingers! mel's brother's family joined us for the day from hamilton. as did mel's mum. so was quite the family event (em being a hanger-on of course) we had some good food and chatter and presents were opened. what do you get a 1yr old?!?! i got her jandals. they were so cute i couldn't resist! and really.. every kiwi kid needs jandals! i think we had more fun opening the presents than phaedra did. in the afternoon me, em, jimmy and matt had the most mammoth game of frisbee ever! we started off playing vortex which was all good and well until someone threw the vortex into this ginormous tree. we spent the next 15mins throwing things at the tree to try and get it to fall down. it didn't. in fact the tree just seemed to suck up the sticks and rocks too! so eventually jimmy had to battle through the dense branches to get it out. haha! hence we started playing frisbee. i suck at frisbee. but eventually got my groove on. we were in a reserve out the back and i was in the 'badlands' were there were heaps of ruts and random holes in the ground. not surprisingly i twisted my ankle. who twists there ankle playing frisbee? apparently i do. the next day we were all rather sore from our frisbee experience. though jimmy was the only one really complaining about it :)
a nice soak in the hot pools sorted us out though. me, em, phaedra, mel and steve went. good times! though there was a FREAKY lifeguard who was rather obsessed with phaedra. he kept following us around the pool, waving at her, popping out from behind poles to surprise her, he even grabbed her hand at one stage without asking! FREAKY!!!
now you may think i haven't mentioned phaedra all that much in this blog. but c'mon people, she is only one so there is only so much you can say about her! but shes cool. and i have seen her since and she is turning into a cool little person :)

The mighty BOP

So after our crazy time in Gizzy we were keen for a bit of normality. Drove through the gorge to Whakatane - a real nice drive if you are heading that way. It had one of the prettiest rivers I saw in the North Island. Green and nice. We had read that Ohope was a good place to be so headed there for a looksy. Em became CONVINCED that the surf was going to pick up marginally so we could actually catch some damn waves. Therefore we both suited up (I was reluctant at first) and then proceeded to have a great swim with our boards. Yep you guessed it... once again NO SURF!! still it was a rad swimming beach and worth it because em was freaking out when the cockle shells kept hitting her and shrieking like a little girl. haha! :)

Ohope Beach

now when you live in a van for a few months you tend to become a bit lax about your sense of privacy when doing things like changing. so it came that after our swim i was getting changed and realised my bra needed tightening so was standing there, in the carpark, in my bra and a towel while em was tightening it. didn't seem wierd to me at all. and really, not indecent either. but then a truckload of workmen drove past and were staring like nobodys business and 5mins later when they drove back again we realised that perhaps we were a bit of a spectacle. whoops! haha! oh well - prob made their day :)
cruised into whakatane for a spot of food and somehow ended up at a pub where we ordered some $5 fish and chip meals. it took FOREVER for them to come out! we were sitting outside in the sun thinking 'what the fuck?' so eventually i went in to ask what the dealio was. she asked if we had changed tables. no. and some other pointless questions and then said it would be out soon. we waited for another 10-15mins and were on the brink of leaving when ta-da! our meals arrived. except we got upgraded :) the dumbass waitress (i tell you its hard to get good service!) had given our $5 meals to someone else so we were getting their $15 fish of the day meals! YUSS!!! was worth the wait methinks :)
feeling nice and full we left whakatane and drove up the coast to matata where there was a $4 park up/camping spot with some very permanent looking campervans. it was just over the sand dunes to the beach and was wicked. had a cool shower thing too and a pump for water. good find