Opahi Bay...mussels, kayaks, fishing contest

Green lipped mussels and pasta at Opahi Bay.

We drove out of Auckland up to Opahi Bay, where Roger has a beach bach and parked up in his garden. The last few miles all look like Hobbiton to us, but they must be plenty of places in NZ that have that green undulated hilly look. Where they filmed LOTR, in Matamata, just south of Auckland, must have been easier for those huge catering lorries, that are the first requirement of any filming project, to get to.

The kids met other kids! Darcy, Grace, Lily, Wilson and dad, Andrew and mum, Anna from Auckland. Andrew' took them out fishing and biscuiting. Poor little Wilson caught a great Kingfish but it was 4cm undersize so had to go back.

Raz and Bear kayaking in the bay.

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A lovely boat for you, Olive.

Men versus women tug of war.



Fish as big as small children.

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Opahi Bay fishing competition.

Raz and Darcy being towed around at high speed on body boards. Cheers Andrew.

100% NZ

Long live Banana Man, a superhero much missed from the 80s.

The lift - the scarey view down to oblivion.

Our first day in NZ and we took the ferry from Devonport (only similar in name – this one has painted weatherboard homes, boutiques, coffee shops, actually looks more English -no hoodies) to downtown Auckland (sounds like oak-land when the locals say it). By the wharf people were handing out seared tuna canapés with wasabi mayo and moist bbqed mackerel as a draw for the weekend’s seafood festival. After this, there was a man handing out lollipops. Cheers, lunch done. We headed towards the skytower and saw someone fling themself off all 192m of it. Digs started to get keen.


Just as we arrived at the bottom of the tower, a chap called Julian, who turned out to be one of the team, flew down the outside of the tower, because he was “bored”. 10 minutes later Digs and a chap called James from Liverpool, got dressed up in a fake superhero outfit, with it's crude lighting flash across the chest and bananary yellow splashes of colour. We went outside at waited at the X that marked the spot – a big crash mat with a red bullseye on it. I lay on my back of the steel mesh with my camera poised on the jump deck at the top of the building watching the people who had chosen to walk around the outide of the tower on a 1m walkway with no handrail, dressed in orange boiler suits, that can only be described as Guantanomo-chic. Apparently, this activity is all the nerves and non of the thrill. OK, let's see the thrill then.

Julian gave us a 4minute, and then a 30 second countdown, and then said he didn’t cactually catch the name of the jumper! I filmed someone plunging off the steel gangplank, hang around outside the restaurant window for 5 seconds and then freefall, while Bear shouted out, “Dad, do your superman move”. It was Digs,  and I did manage to film it (will upload when I have a high speed connection). They both did it for a second time -  backwards. 

As we waited for the photos and dvd etc, Magi spotted a T shirt with a large chicken on it that read “Nearly jumped off the sky tower”.  We all went up to the viewing platform in the lift, that digs had twice gone up, but never come down, and from the restaurant on the observation deck we saw some of the team and some punters fling themselves off the tower and dangle for our pleasure nearly 200m above the road below.

First night in the new camper opposite Rangitoto.

Last few days in Sydney with some old friends from Bar Contessa

With Con and Sarina, my bosses from Bar Contessa. Lovely to see you and look through the album at us girls as we were then! Thanks for being so generous to the kids. x

Renee, great to see you and meet your Richard, Brandon and Lilly. Thanks for an unforgetable roast - pork with all the trimmings and blissful gravy - and full on Sunday brunch. The world is waiting for "A Year without Beer" Richard. I'm expecting a few more highs and lows than "A Year in Provence" or "The Woman who went to bed for a Year" and have some bearing on why people live so long in "A Year in the Village of Eternity"! Look forward to seeing you in Devon soon-ish. x

Got all the kids up, the boys out of the top bunk and Magi out of her wombat hole, packed away the beds in the van for the last time and drove to the airport. Randy and Vicky flew in, having left their farm south of Adelaide early in the morning, to take our Bruce away. They paid us the balance on the van as a $5k wodge of notes and had a quick look around. They said that they rarely leave their rural area, so negotiating the roads out of Sydney was going to be Randy’s worst nightmare. 

We had a great flight from Sydney to Auck/Orc-land. Watched "Contagion" - probably not the most relaxing in-flight viewing and a couple of episodes of “Come fly with me”. Saw the one where Walliams and Lucas seize some drugs and proceed in their office to try them out, progressively getting more and more smashed.

Stunning views as you fly into Auckland – fields and undulating hills of middle earth and a glimpse of 90 mile beach. 

This is the first time we've been through biological customs, here they examined the soles of our shoes, like we were a family of shire horses – for any specs of dirt or clots of aussie soil.

R.I.P. Croos...you were so nearly Crocs.

Raz and Bear both had a pair of these knock off Crocs from Pokhara in Nepal (RRP very much dependent on individual bartering technique - for us about £2.50 equiv) before we set off up to Annapurna Base Camp. Raz left one of his outside the van in Sawtell at Christmas and Bear's have now decided to call it a day. R.I.P. Croos.

Blue Mountains: early morning cycle to 3 sisters

Mist clearing around skyway car.

Three Sisters on the edge of the Jamison Valley.

The 3 sisters, let's call them, Kylie, Danii and Barry - after Australia 3 most famous "women", although maybe instead of Danii we should have Priscilla? That will be two laydees and one queen of pop then.

I've just got back from early-ish cycle to the 3 sisters. As I cycled down and up Katoomba Street - it's a bit like one of those wavey slides you go down on a door mat - past some amazing whaffs from an invisible patisserie, towards Echo Point, it was clear that the valley was sitting beneath a heavy mist. The sun was starting to shine on the cable cars of the scenic skyway doing their early morning test runs. A couple of backpackers were having their breakfast  - yesterdays bread and half a jar of Nutella - on a bench in the viewing platform.

I cycled as far as I could down the track to the start of the Giant’s Stairway and walked down the first section of it for “experienced walkers” to the first of the 3 sisters. Next to a bench under the overhang there’s a large copy of an Edwardian photo of 2 girls in long white dresses viewing the rocks.

 

The first sister; Kylie?

Under the first sister.

Will miss this bike in NZ.

Steepest railway in the world in Katoomba. Basically just feel like a vertical ride down a cliff face at 52 degrees.

The scenic skyway going over Katoomba Falls and forest. Floor of car becomes transparent as it goes off the edge.

Evidence of forest fire that was started deliberately October 2011. Apparently they just caught the chap responsible for it today!

The Blue Mountains: Pulpit Rock and Bushranger's Cave

Walking to the edge at Pulpit Rock.

A local recommendation, from a teenage lad we picked up on our drive back from the Ruined Castle walk, whose bike chain had broken, was to visit Pulpit Rock, near Mount Victoria.

The weather is absolute nuts here. One minute we've got the electric blankets on in the house and then it's a typical hot dry day. As we walked down the zig zag track to the Bushranger’s Cave: a huge red rock with no obvious entrance, the bush was alive with lizards the same colour as the fallen dusty gum leaves.

Digs found the entrance to the cave, slightly obscuerd by fallen boulders. Raz repeatedly warned us of rattle snakes and scorpions, and all I could say was with raised eyebrows was "127 hours". We'd walked this far though...so we heaved ourseves up and I used my camera flash to explore the back of the cave.

Bushranger's Cave.

Entrance to the cave.

View of Jenolan Valley from inside the cave.

Magi pointed out that this view is seen through a dolphin shaped crack!



Painting boomerangs in the Katoomba Classroom.



The Blue Mountains: walk to Ruined Castle

We did a 5 hour walk along the old Federal Pass to the ruined castle today. This isn't a castle in the European sense; more of a rocky outcrop that is like a sandstone version of Haytor. I picked off a couple of leeches, one was as big as a slug. Digs, who thought he had escaped them, got back, took his shoes and socks off to dicover that two of them had been silently sucking away at his foot and lower leg without him noticing and blood was soaking through his socks. 

I got a call from someone from South Australia today and had another paypal scammer on the emails when we got back to the house trying to buy our campervan.

The hallmarks of the scam are that they always want to sort out the cash transfer without even coming to see the van. They also have various excuses for not being able to have phone contact. This one went by name of “Flora Schulze”, and she works on ships off the coast as a welfare office (always give slightly too much information), and is wanting to buy it for her dad’s 50^th birthday surprise as a rennovation project. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to bits Flora! I replied with a short email saying that it was “amusing, but not very convincing”.

Bottlebrush.

The boys at the Runied Castle lookout.