Winter in the North

Bridge -Whanganui
Bridge – Whanganui
Wayne. Viginia Lake
Virginia Lake – Whanganui

It is official…..we are back living in the North Island. Presently in Whanganui.

Our trip so far……..Arrived in Blenheim on 11th May to stay with no 7 Gingko Place, aka The Morrisons. Felt strange driving up the street & parking up at the neighbour’s house. As Wayne says, we had a number of Medical Experiences (aka appointments) to do, catch up with our family & spend time with our granddaughters, visit our rock n roll family, & of course morning tea with the Friday girls. Thanks so much to our wonderful hosts, Kevin & Lynette for having us & allowing us to stay in their home while they jaunted off to Hawaii for a much deserved holiday. In between, we spent a weekend in Auckland (Wayne had an Acromegaly AGM) with Andrew & Sarah & our grandsons. Return to Blenheim to finish our appointments and it was then time & we set sail on the Bluebridge to Wellington. A good trip with no incidents getting the caravan on & off the Ferry. Masterton was our destination.

Had a lovely week with Dianne (my sister) & Peter (brother- in- law) , Lucy (neice) & pooch. I don’t normally get more than a few hours with my sister, so to have 7 days was lovely. We parked the caravan up their drive & just used it to sleep in. Weather wasn’t too kind to us but we managed to get in a few walks, a 31km bike ride for Wayne (think I was shopping at the time) & a great night out with Sheryl & Matt at a fantastic pizza place (log house, not theirs!!!) out of Masterton. Good to visit my old home town & family.

We then moved onto Feilding to Wayne’s Mum & Dad. Plan was to help them out around the house…..Wayne as gardner & me as cleaner & chief cook and any other duties as directed!!!! Wayne’s Mum had just had her appendix removed & Dad has been recovering from a  stroke. We spent a productive week there. The caravan was stored on a friends farm while we stayed in the family home with a nice log fire. Lovely to have time again with family & although both Wayne’s parents are aging they are in good spirits. We manged to go to a club night at Rose City Rock n Roll. They made us feel so welcome…taught us some moves & we even won the raffle. I also went to an evening for the Feilding Music Society with my mother-in-law. It was based on Royalty & was a lovely night seeing local talent perform.

Last Monday we headed northfor morer adventures in NZ. We decided to head up the west coast & spend some time in Taranaki & surrounding area.  We went out sight seeing yesterday & there is a bridge sitting, built, ready & waiting to be placed across the Whanganui river to complete the Mountain to the Sea Cycle Trail, but all is at a stand still as aparently the Iwi now want money for it to proceed. See pic of bridge. It is sitting in a paddock!!!

Wayne would like to catch up with some old friends & haunts from his years working & living in the area, so it’s a few days here in Whanganui then onto Hawera. A get together has been organised for next Saturday with some friends from The Alpine Club. I am sure there will be lots of stories told.

Not sure when Wayne plans to look for work…..think he is having too much fun as unemployed!!!

Time to sign off…hopefully we have more pictures & adventures to share at the end of June. Take care everyone x

North Island Gypsies