Tuesday in the Northland

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Hello all -
It's Aunt Susan again. I've been making Nana and Pop log into the blog and practice loading the pictures just to make sure that they knew what they were doing - wouldn't want the blog to suffer after I leave on Friday! But tonight, Mom was busy writing in her journal and Dad was deep into his Clive Cussler book, so you're stuck with me.

It's Tuesday night and we're in One Tree Point, north of Auckland. We left Pokeno this morning and drove through Auckland after the morning traffic died down a bit. It wasn't until we were 1 1/2 hours into our drive that Mom and Dad remembered that they had forgotten their lightweight jackets back in the motel in Pokeno. Geesh!

So we stopped in the next town to get a phone card and I called the motel to give them the address of the place where we'll be tomorrow and Thursday nights. So when we arrived here, we checked and they had already put the jackets in the post (mail).

We found the motel in One Tree Point just fine but I'm going to have to ask why the place is called One Tree Point as there are a lot more trees than that! We were looking for something to do/explore this afternoon and the only thing in One Tree Point/Marsden Point is the big oil refinery! Woo hoo!!

So we went to the Oil Refinery Tourist Centre to check things out. It's NZ's only oil refinery and provides 80-85% of their needs. We didn't tour the actual refinery but watched the videos and studied the models. We all should have paid more attention in chemisty class, some of it was a bit over our heads. But it was very interesting.

After that big adventure, we rewarded ourselves with a beer or two at the local tavern. Now that was a happening spot - looked like a popular spot for the after-work crowd. We always turn heads when we walk into places like that - you'd think we looked like tourists or something...

Then had a tasty dinner at the eatery next door - we had very tasty BBQ pork ribs for an appetizer then splurged on dessert. Yum!

Tomorrow, we head up to the Bay of Islands, to Russell. It is supposed to be very scenic and beautiful. We'll be at that motel two nights.

Hope all is well - I'm not sure I'm ready to leave Friday evening, the weather here has been quite delightful. My flight leaves Auckland at 7:30pm and then I land in Seattle at 3pm Friday afternoon. Watch it snow in Seattle over the weekend. :-(

Love to all,
Aunt Susan, Nana and Pop

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Photos

Oil refinery
It's in a very scenic part of the island so they're very careful of there waste products and stuff.

One Tree Point
Seagull at One Tree Point

Comments

[Mark]

Keep it up!
Enjoy catching up on the trip with the blog. Glad to hear that Pop is practicing to keep it up once Susan leaves!

[Lisa]

Bloggin' Pop
Be sure to show Pop how to use the Spell Check!