traveling with friends

On Monday, we traveled to Auckland to meet up with Pete's parents at the home of some of their friends. The family met Willi and Lou in South Africa during their circumnavigations. Now they are living in a house just north of Auckland and have kindly opened their home to us. We've shared lively cruising story telling, lovely meals and lots of sight seeing. On Tuesday we visited a cultural center telling all about the natural area. The kids liked the geckos and we enjoyed viewing the palm ferns close up. On Wednesday we took John's boat out to a small island to view birds. The animals here are very unique, especially the birds. No mammals except bats are native, so flightless birds have no predators. Large Takahe birds, with their peacock coloring and long red legs strut around the island hoping for handouts. The sea was calm, so the trip across doing 32 knots went really fast. The kids couldn't believe that a boat could go so fast.

Somewhere along the way, the van developed a diesel leak in the injection pump. Quoted repairs were $1600 for a pump rebuild. Pete worked his magic with a new seal and and some new o-rings and now we're back in business. We did have a few hours of stress, wondering if our new purchase was better suited to the wrecking yard. Today, I braved the right hand driving and the mall parking lot. Now we're all stocked up with warm clothes and groceries to head off to the campgrounds. Pete and Willi went mountain biking and the kids did a bit of school.

We plan to do some hiking, some tourist attractions and some beach playing. The north island has a lot of geothermal activity, so we're on the way to see a hot spring beach tomorrow and on the drive back north we'll see geisers and bubbling mud pots.

The weather is typical spring, with a bit of everything. We're dressing in layers, fairly cold at night, and warm enough for AC during mid day. We're remembering how real life back was at home after being spoiled in the tropics for so long.

And we're off- Kellie