Howick Historical Village

Today we decided to explore the eastern side of Auckland, firstly heading to Howick Historical Village. This is based on the fencible settlements dating back to the late 1840s/early 1850s and has involved the transportation of buildings from their original sites to this dedicated area. The fencibles were retired soldiers from Britain offered a free passage to NZ with the promise of land and a cottage in return for 7 years military service. On arrival, they found that the cottages weren't built and had to live in either a tent or raupo until they were - an example of both in this picture.


Once the actual cottages were built, some of the owners transformed their front rooms to general stores or pubs.





The more senior ranked ex-soldiers were provided larger and better built cottages with more acres of land.





The old methodist church was built in 1852, and can still be used today for wedding ceremonies.






This homestead was built in 1861 and had to be split into several pieces to transfer to the current site. The village was a very interesting stop off and confirmed that NZ does have a little bit of history!

Tutukaka Coast

As today is a public holiday in NZ, we headed a couple of hours north to the Tutukaka coast, north east of Whangarei. Our first stopping point was Tutukaka itself, a marina and starting point for several fishing charters and dive boats heading out to Poor Knights islands, considered to be the best diving area in NZ. Now that Royston fancies himself as a fisherman, I think we will be heading back here soon so that he can go out deep sea fishing for tuna and marlin.


From here we headed around the coast to Sandy Bay, a favourite with the surfers and not particularly busy considering it is peak holiday time.






Back around the coast we then stopped at Woolleys Bay, again incredibly busy!!






We decided to settle here for lunch - not a bad spot for a BBQ! The deserted beach in the background is Whale Bay, only accessible by foot so one for another day.






On the way back we stopped off at the look out point for spectacular views - this is down to Ngunguru beach.





Whilst this is in the other direction back towards Tutukaka and Poor Knights islands.





On the way into Whangarei we stopped at the Whangarei Falls - very spectacular and a popular area for families with kids jumping in (but not over the falls!) and swimming.





Our final stop of the day was Whangarei town centre, with the Town Basin a particularly nice area with the marina and numerous restaurants and shops.

New Year's Day - Around the North Shore

The first day of 2008 was absolutely glorious so we decided to visit some parts of the North Shore where, even though we've lived there for over a year now, we had not previously ventured. Our first stop was Rothesay Bay a very family friendly beach.




Despite the wonderful weather, the beach was relatively quiet, mainly due to so many Aucklanders having headed off to their holiday homes or destinations around the country.




Around the headland gave a good view north to Browns Bay, our usual beach destination.





Further down the east coast we stopped off at Campbells Bay, again a family friendly beach and not very busy. There were a lot of beautiful houses backing onto the beach - if only we could find a spare $2-3 million!



Our last stop of the day was at Lake Pupuke on the outskirts of Takapuna. It was originally used to provide water to the whole of the North Shore many years ago. It is now a recreational lake with several people swimming, kayaking and windsurfing. The old pump house is now a theatre with a small outdoor amphitheatre used in summer.

First Fishing Trip

Today I went on my first fishing trip with Paul to the Kaipara harbour north west of Auckland. I didn't enjoy the early start 3am wake up to be at the dock for 5am!! - at least we saw sunrise...






This is me before the violent rocking of the boat caused a brief period of sea sickness...though this didn't stop me reeling in several snappers and kahawai




Boat was great - spacious and plenty of room for all the chilly bins full of beer, and later fish, good preparation areas for bleeding and gutting fish, and baiting the lines. Skipper was very good knowing all the good spots, and forced me to keep fishing through my sea sickness.





After the fishing came the eating... The first snapper was eaten raw sashimi style - amazing!! The second snapper was cooked whole on the BBQ.





The finished meal!







Charlie was very non-plussed about the whole thing, that was until we gave him some freshly cooked snapper - we may have started something we will live to regret there...

Christmas Day

Another warm, but not so dry, Christmas meant we headed to the beach for a picnic lunch today. We stopped at Hatfields beach about 20 minutes north from us and away from the popular beaches.






We had a lovely lunch of crayfish, smoked salmon and smoked mussels washed down with a bottle of NZ fizz from Soljans which we bought when wine tasting with Mum & Dad last month. Who needs a white Christmas!





After the afternoon rain we had a window of opportunity to cook our BBQ this evening - this a pic of the raw ingredients! Thai prawns (monsters!), marlin steaks, kangaroo fillet and rack of lamb.

Computershare Christmas Do

This evening was my Christmas do at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna, just over the road from work. As I am part of the Social Club Committee organising the do was one of my tasks so was quite relieved that all went well. This is a photo of our table with work friends Craig (and his partner Jo), us, Dean and Mark x 2 in the background.


For some reason I got roped into doing a Princess Leia impression...it's amazing what a few glasses of wine will let you do... That's Charmaine holding the bread rolls and Novita next to her.





And a picture of Royston and Craig before they went off to dance to Dancing Queen together...

Mahurangi Peninsula

Today we headed along the Mahurangi peninsula to the east of Warkworth. Although the weather was a bit changeable we managed to make several stops along the way. The first was Algies Bay, a popular spot with boaties with many people heading off for a day fishing.




We then headed to Scandrett Regional Park, Auckland's most recent regional park which is still under development. The beach looks out over Kawau Bay, and there are many walks that we plan to do in the future.



After a brief stop off at Martins Bay, we then went to Scott Point which is part of the Mahurangi Regional Park, and home to the Scott Homestead.






After a walk on the beach we had a picnic lunch before heading back home.