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Report 10
Well, Professor Easterling has bequeathed me
(Susie) the responsibility of compiling our current travelogue. But, before I go any farther, let me say we
hope to hear back from you. We like to
hear what’s going on in your lives.
We remained at the Bed and Breakfast in Kaukaupakapa
(cow copper copper) until the 12th of March. The B&B could be better described as a
loft apartment above the garage—all one room divided into kitchen, bedroom
and living area…..really cute and comfortable. The owners of the B&B (Maureen and
Dennis) lived in a dwelling on the other side of the garage in a gorgeous
home that Dennis had built. He builds
homes for a living. They came to NZ
from England in 1960,
after one year of marriage, and said in those days they thought they would
never return to England……12,000
miles from here. But, they have traveled back a few times. Maureen took me out once and we visited her
sister. Other than that, I spent the
time reading, doing as little housework as possible and watching it rain,
rain, rain. Those few days actually
put Houston
to shame. I thought when we lived
there it could never rain that much anywhere.
WRONG! I did love the feel
though on my old lizard New Mexico
skin. When we left I felt a personal
obligation to bid farewell to the fields of sheep and cows that talked to us
as we took our walks along the pastures.
I really hated to say good-bye to one particular cow that I never saw
but talked to me (well she mooooooed} each evening as I prepared dinner. Rob continued riding the bus one hour into Auckland so he was happy when our townhouse in Auckland became
available.
 During
the last part of our stay in the country we just took drives around the local
area. We were close to Orewa which is
a small town along the shoreline. What
town around here isn’t? Anyway, we had
some nice walks along the beach and enjoyed watching the windsurfers---more
guts than glory? We also took a
picture of a building that was reminiscent of New Mexico—a little bit of nostalgia.
One of our drives took us to a pistachio farm—be
still my heart. I had a wonderful
piece of carrot cake filled with pistachios and covered with cream cheese
frosting and MORE pistachios….Rob had something else—but who cares??? it
wasn’t carrot cake. We did take a long
walk around the farm after we ate but it would have taken miles to walk off
that cake, but it was worth every calorie and fat gram. We drove on up the road and eventually came
to the end of the peninsula—literally the end. There was a farmhouse built on the
peninsula overlooking the Tasman Sea. GORGEOUS!!!! Coming back we stopped in Helensville which
is a small town with many antique shops that went from the ridiculous to the
sublime. Honestly, one shop was so
packed we couldn’t walk through and another had the antiques so elegantly
displayed that one wonders why they were in this little town.
 On
a Saturday we went to a festival called Pasifika in Auckland.
It is the annual celebration by those people whose history stems from
the South Pacific Islands. We were so excited to go. (R: Auckland
has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world, a rapidly
growing Asian contingent, so it’s quite the diverse city.) We had to park a long way away and walk and
when we entered the park area we were overwhelmed. Talk about claustrophobia. During the day there were 140,000 people in
an area certainly not big enough for that many. Sort of like the State Fair on a very
crowded day. We ate some (Rob did) and
watched some dances, looked at some crafts and left. (R: Ask Susie to show you her coconut
lingerie when we get back.)
As I mentioned previously, we left the country
B&B on the 12th. We
couldn’t get into our townhouse until the 16th because until then it was
occupied by a family from Penn
State. He was doing some research at the University of Auckland; she was home-schooling two
kids. We decided it was silly to
continue paying for the B&B so we decided to travel until the 16th.
The night of the 12th, we went to the
Auckland Town Hall to hear the Soweto Gospel
Choir of Africa. I don’t know what was
more awesome—the choir or the Town Hall.
We counted 60 exposed pipes on the organ—who knows how many more were
behind the exposed ones. The singing,
the costuming, the dancing and the witnessing of the choir members were so
inspiring. Rob was even clapping and
yelling, “More, More.”-----of course, I was JUST HUMILITATED!! The highlight to me was the introduction of
one of the members who was the 52nd child of 55 born to a man and
his six wives. What a man—what
unbelievably misled women.!!!!!!! Oh
yes, prior to the concert, we ate in a MEXICAN restaurant not far from the
town hall. They advertised kick-a??
hot sauce. What a joke, but, hey, we
take what we can get -- once.
Love to you all
Susie and Rob
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