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kia ora!

This weekend was W O N D E R F U L ! ! ! ! ! ! ! This was truly the best weekend ever! Five more sleeps until our trip back home! It was our three year anniversary on Friday. Friday night I went out with a couple of the girls from work so we could get to know each other outside of the centre. They are the girls I work most closely with . . . I think the next time we go out, we'll be inviting everyone though which is cool. We danced down at the Loaded Hog. I had a lot of fun.

On Saturday morning, we got up pretty early and were on the road by eight thirty. Our aim was to finally get all the way north to Cape Reinga. We pretty much only stopped for gas or bathrooms, and we finally arrived about three thirty in the afternoon! It was gorgeous! You can see by the sign that the Maori believe this to be a very sacred place. It's where your spirit departs the world when you pass away.

From how strong the wind was while we were there, I'm surprised that place doesn't just tear your spirit right out of you!

I couldn't believe they had a post box up there. If I had some post cards in the car, I would have sent them off with some change hoping the mail carrier would buy my stamps for me! NZ Post goes up twice a week - on Mondays and Thursdays I believe at eleven thirty in the morning.

If you look closely at the picture of the water, you can actually see where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. Pretty spectacular eh? The water was so bright blue on the one side and so greeny blue on the other side. You can (well I could anyway) see that the tide was coming in on the one side and heading out on the other. It was so so so very beautiful. I still absolutely love Muriwai, but Cape Reinga is definitely something I love and I feel very lucky to have been able to have the experience of being there first hand. Honestly - I'd hate to look at these pictures, I wouldn't even bother looking at them since I'd rather BE there myself. Should I stop with the emails? Do you feel this way?

That #$&$#% bird wouldn't get off the car until we started driving.

Although it looks all super cloudy and gloomy, it was pretty warm, but very very very windy. I think I almost feel beaten up by how strong that wind was up there at the northern most tip of New Zealand. Strong gusts were tossing my hair all over the freakin place till I put it up.

There actually was something that looked like a path that led down that way to the water. Patrick wanted to go down, but I was terrified with all of that strong wind howling about us. I told him to go ahead and that I'd wait in the car. He really shouldn't pass those opportunities up - but he did. Now I'll probably feel guilty that we never went down when we had the chance.

We were very happy to see that Vancouver was on the post. I felt very teary and a little homesick because seeing the sign made me think about just how far away home really is. We kept trying to get shots of how far it actually is to Vancouver from the northern most tip of New Zealand. . . Then we finally figured out to look at the sign from the other side of it! :P

There was a couple taking pictures of each other, so patrick asked them to take a picture of us. I'm trying to point in the direction of home - but I think I messed up a tad.

Alright, I lied. We did stop on the way there. We stopped in Manganui to eat at the Mangonui fish shop that Trevan highly recommended.

good on y'mate

That was some pretty good eating I tell you! Those were the best fries in the world! The fish was superb! Patrick was very very happy with his fish and chips. Next time, we're bringing our own supply of Wattie's though. (Wattie's makes a 'tomato sauce' {which is t'mat toe not tom mate toe} that doesn't quite taste like heinz ketchup) You can get ketchup here at Foodtown, either or, everywhere we go they charge fifty cents to a dollar for a dollap of the red goo. When the boys come for a visit, we'll definitely have to carry around a bottle of ketchup for them. The tartar sauce wasn't all that, but then the fish and chips more than made up for that. It didn't really need any sauce at all. Can you imagine?

so what if I had a corn dog on a stick. They call those things hot dogs. American hot dogs are five bucks and very rare to find - unless you're in a specific gas station and it comes pre made - pre wrapped and ready to microwave (bleleeeeeeeeeeeah ablahbalhe eck ick ack YUCK!). And I really enjoyed my corn dog thank you very much.

On the long long long drive up north, at the beginning of the northern peninsula were signs. The signs read "WELCOME TO THE FAR NORTH" "THE FAR NORTH PUB" "LAST WHATEVER IN THE FAR NORTH" and it just went on and on and on. We stopped at the last gas station in the far north before I checked our handy blue guidebook that said there are a couple of different petrol stations to stop at on the way to Cape Reinga.

We found the real last gas station. It's the red and white sign by the way. The guy at the blue sign left much to be desired and the restrooms were somewhat terrifying.

There are more pictures to come. It took us until seven ish to get to Paihia (pie hee ah) where Patrick had reserved us a room at the Copthorn (?) hotel which was very very nice. Paihia is minutes from Russell - and we totally could have just had dinner there when we decided to leave Russell since dinner doesn't start there until six pm. Anyway, Paihia was gorgeous! What I should do and haven't done is take a picture of one of their 'christmas' trees. They are in bloom right now, and gorgeous!

Missing you all Millions and Millions more!

I think this week is going to take forever to go by since it's the last week before we finally come home!

love hugs and kisses!

April (mom)

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