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Whangarei Falls
Waterfall that I visited before going to Home Port Farm. I spent the weekend at a little place called Home Port Farm. It was a nice little farm out in the countryside surrounding the city of Whangarei and home to a very nice couple, Cathy and Howard. I got lost a few times getting there and had to make a few calls to them in order to figure out where it was that I was actually going, but in the end Howard was standing out on the driveway waiting for my arrival. They welcomed me into their lovely home, gave me my own room to stay in that was separate from the rest of the house with its own door to the outside and fed me very well! That night they also introduced me to a NZ-made movie called the World's Fastest Indian. It was nice to just sit down and watch a movie for a change.
Saturday they took me out on their boat that they had been working on for the past 20+ years. And like any project of that sort they never considered it done. It was a beautiful single-masted sailboat called the Wind Wand after a kinetic sculpture designed by a NZ artist named Len Lye.
We sailed out of Parua Bay with their son Nick and his girlfriend. It was fun to get to hang out with Kiwis and of course it made it even better that it was on a boat.
Once we got back to land and had moored the boat for the night and stowed the dingy, they learned that I had never seen glow worms and Howard took me out on a mission to find some in the gullies down by the road. It was a nice walk and fun just to get to talk to him about all sorts of things. We talked about cars and the boat and the farm and his work for a magazine. It was all very interesting stuff. We did end up seeing glow worms which I was very excited about and on the way back he showed me the trick to finding south using the Southern Cross constellation, something that I had been dying to know.
Sunday Cathy took me to church in Whangarei. Everyone was extremely nice and nearly everyone in the church invited me to come and stay with them. It was great to feel so welcomed. Cathy and I
Endless Summer
Notice the dates of summer. I just thought it was interesting. did end up going over to one of the member's houses that afternoon for some juice by the pool and some good conversation. I got a few more suggestions for places I should go and mentally noted them down on the map that had been floating around in my head ever since I arrived.
Later on that night, after visiting her son, Cathy and Howard took me on a kind of driving tour of the area. They took me to a couple wonderful beaches and to an island reserve which was basically just a large hill surrounded by water. Easily accessible at low tide by crossing the estuary behind their land we climbed all the way to the top and I got my first 360⁰ view of the trip. It was magnificent, plagued only by the fact that my camera batteries had run out minutes earlier.
I spent one more day with them, getting a tour of their farm, meeting the 7 sheep, feeding the 5 cattle, and getting briefly introduced to the 22 goats on our way to look for eels in the stream marking the boundary of their land. I gorged on steak and potatoes that
Mainsail Sun
the sun behind the mainsail of the Wind Wand. night and bid them adieu in the morning. It was great to get to meet such nice people and have them take me in and show me such a great time without ever having seen, much less met, me before.
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Casey
non-member comment
Indian
Eric, I have a copy of the World's Fastest Indian and it is a great movie. Hope the sailing was great. Enjoy, Casey