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Published: March 6th 2020
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We had booked ourselves into a summer house for the last week of our trip. A kind of holiday from the holiday. The aim was to find our own space, wind down and have time to soak us the last of the sun and the waves before returning to a very wet and, in comparison, pretty cold northern Europe. If I have to say it myself, we did pretty well at just that!
We spent the time at the playground, at the beach and doing a few trips. But not very many. We had rented a big summer house, so had invited new friends, that we met over Christmas in Bay of Islands, down to stay for the weekend.
Only plan set in stone for the 7 days was a trip to see Cathedral Cove and hot water beach. Plan was for Saturday, but the weather didn’t look perfect, so we pushed it a day. Instead, we waited indoors pretty much all day for the rain, and becoming a bit impatient towards the afternoon the adults decided it was time to get out. There was a very manageable walk to the top of a hill only a half hour
drive away, and we went for it. On the way there, the torrential rain started. We were sitting in the car doubting our decision a little bit, but as we pulled up to park, it had pretty much cleared. Or so we thought. After 5 minutes the train that we had driven though started catching up with us. Should we wait under a tree, or just not care to get a little wet? Going back was of course not an option. But after half an hour of moving 50 metres at a time, everyone being drenched, three very unhappy children, Alba falling over in the mud was the last straw. We realised we couldn’t make it. I went alone to the top, and at places it was like the stairs had turned into a waterfall. Probably a good thing we did not try to get us all up there. It was just one of those day, that you can only laugh at. Especially as the rain disappeared, the clouds lifted and the sun came out as we were getting back into the cars to drive back. Bad timing!
We made up for it with a delicious dinner and plenty
of wine J
The next day was a much bigger success. The walk from Hahei to Cathedra cove had been recommended by several different people, and, although a bit crowded, it was beautiful. The cliffs really reminded me of the Krabi region of Thailand (that we keep going back to), and in some ways, looking out over the water, it felt a little bit like “home”. We were just missing all the little stalls along the way selling cold water and ice cream at increasingly higher prices the further you get away from the main town.
On the way back we stopped at a beach, that had a snorkelling trail. I had imagined that we would do a lot more snorkelling than we have on the trip, but even though Ollie and Alba got mask and snorkel for Christmas, it had mainly been used to practise in the pool. Alba is still not too crazy about the whole “head-under-water” thing, so I took Ollie out. Only 20 meters from the sheltered bay was a school of about a hundred fish, each about a foot long. It was probably a good thing that they were not with us at
the surface, or I would have had Ollie climbing up on my back. But they were far enough away to spark an interest in doing it again. And maybe even going SCUBA diving one day.
On our last afternoon we met up in Auckland with other new friends, also from the beginning of the trip. We climbed One Tree Hill (that gave the name to the U2 song). The tree is no longer there, but it’s still a cool place to visit. It took about 30 seconds for children as well as adults to pick up from where we left in early January, and the three hours clearly wasn’t enough time to have all the conversations and play all the games that we had in us. But I guess that’s also the beauty of it. It’s a good reason to meet up again in another place and another time
Looking back on the whole trip we realise that we’ve been lucky. No one has had any accidents or been sick. Worst case was Alba being carsick ONCE in the mountains. You can’t really ask for more, when travelling for this long. The car functioned perfectly the whole way
and generally it has been a super easy country to travel in. We’ve met a lot of good people along the way, and we hope to see some of them again in the future. I love to social connections you make so easily when travelling, and I aspire to not let that go, when going back to “normal” life.
Wow – what a trip. All I can think now is
“when can we do this again?” I guess that’s up to us, because no one else can do it for us!
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