Opotiki - May, 2024

 

Friends in the outback post of Opotiki, a rather rural town near where Clare grew up, needed someone to come take care of Maisie, their 15yo rescue for a couple of weeks.  Call the housesitting friends!!!

Maisie Moo keeping warm

We were pleasantly surprised by our stay here.  We were right on the river bank, upon which we enjoyed plenty of walks with Maisie.  She likes the many horses that roam freely here.

James made use of the river in another way.  Sneaking up on flounder and tricking them into taking a worm on a hook!  He makes it look so easy.

Feeding the whanau.  Maisie gets a
look in too.

Clare makes it into a meal to write home about.  Hardly any food miles in this!

And so the sourdough journey continues.  This time .... cinnamon roll.

James kept himself busy metal detecting.  At least making enough coin to pay for his petrol.  Someone backed into the van while he had it parked at a park.  The most surprising thing about this is that they were busy leaving him a note when he turned up!  Opotiki is not know for it's law abiding citizens.

The river bank became the gift that kept on giving.  One day on Maisie's walk, two tiny black kittens swam across a creek to be rescued by us.  We took them home for a night, fed and watered them and arranged to drop them at the local rescue centre the next day.  The cutest thing about this was that when we got them to the rescue centre, there was already one exactly the same there that someone else had rescued from the same place.  We still get regular updates on their progress.  They were super friendly and won't have any trouble finding a home.  Although, apparently, black cats are the hardest to home according to the rescue centre.  We would have kept them in a breath, but for our itinerant lifestyle.

We had visitors, Clare's sister-in-law and partner.  We took a trip up to Waihau Bay, calling into the bach at Whanarua to show them around.  James had found us a kai cart which we stopped at for coffee, sampling their lovely fresh caught snapper and sharing our home baking with them.

Oh, and we spotted a do-up ....

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and it was lovely to catch up with our friends.  Unfortunately, a couple of weeks after we left, Maisie became suddenly ill and was put to sleep.

RIP Maisie.  We loved our special time with you.

Our new buddy, Buddy - Mar/Apr, 2024

 

Our first official sit since back in NZ was in a new place for us ... Athenree.  We have never been there before although it is just down the beach from Waihi Beach, where we had just met with family.

Buddy turned out to be the best mate to show us around the area.  The house was a very short walk from the estuary which is just a short walk, at low tide, to the beach.  This turned out to be our favourite Buddy walk.

Estuary

Playing in the estuary with Bud

Some days we walked up the hill at Bowentown and looked down upon our stomping ground. 

Buddy and Clare would walk down the beach while James indulged his new passion, metal detecting.

Feijoas came into season while we were here too and we had a fabulously fruiting tree.  We ate them raw, stewed, in cakes and crumbles as well as freezing tons of them for the family to enjoy once they returned home.

Maybe you have to be a kiwi to understand this
particular passion

Buddy is a beautifully trained, loved and loving family dog.  We had a brilliant time hanging out with him in his hood.

Family, fish and fun - NZ Feb/Mar 2024

  

James, Max, Bentley and Luna

Before we knew it we were back in the Bay of Plenty (of sunshine, for sure) and on the beach.  A few days rest and we were off to Waihi Beach to catch up with family. Clare's sister from Wellington and her sister's two daughters and family from Auckland and London.

Of course, we weren't getting away from there without some form of shenanigans.  Willow let go of her kite down on the beach.  Her mum tracked it to a neighbours roof top from which Jame's rescued it.  A full team effort for sure.  Thanks to the kind man who patiently let this all play out on his roof-top!

 Clare took the opportunity to head back to Wellington with her sister to spend a week with her Mum.  James headed back to Whakatane to housesit Max and Ruby.  James also had a couple of successful fishing missions.

Fresh roe on toast

Smoked kahawai, one of our favourites

We had a week or so to wait for our first housesit to start so off to another beach and bach we went.  One of our favourite places on this earth, Whanarua Bay. 

It was so lovely to stop for a while and take a deep breath.  We hadn't realised how much we needed this after a fairly hectic and busy time travelling.  However, this turned into one of our busiest fishing trips ever.  We were delighted to be back in our kayak again and feeding ourselves.

We were also honoured to meet the biggest snapper we have ever caught off land!  But the day before that happened, we caught a beautiful 10lb snapper which we were able to release.

10lb

20lb, it doesn't get much better than this!

We caught up with lots of friends and watched lots of beautiful sunsets from the verandah.