whakamarama

our time in NZ is fast drawing to a close, after a seemingly endless summer we now have exactly a week until we fly out to turkey. the last 3 weeks have been spent on a lifestyle block just out of tauranga at a place called whakamarama. its about 3 acres with lots of avocado trees as well as a variety of other fruit and vegetables.

the house is a beautiful 2 storey farm house, very comfortable and with sweeping views out across the rollling hills to the water and mt maunganui. the only pet is a huge old puss called charlie. he is quite a character and a formidable hunter!

unfortunately i had an ‘incident’ with the ride on mower while mowing the extensive and steep yard, we both rolled down the hill and when I stopped at the bottom of the hill the mower kept coming and landed on my right heel, it squished all the meat out a split in the back of my heel and sprained the ankle badly. I also smashed up my shoulder when i landed.

a trip to the tauranga hospital and some xrays, wound cleaning, gluing and bandaging saw me patched up and then it was just a matter of staying off my feet and waiting for everything to heal. luckily I had sal & kai to wait on me hand and foot and there couldnt have been a more pleasant and peaceful spot to lie around doing nothing than this house!

its taken me 2 weeks so far and I am not 100%, but at least I was well enough to have a day out down the line at rotarua and then the afternoon lying in the hot springs at a spot called secret creek near waiotapu.

while we were driving around roturua kai spotted the segways for hire and there was no stopping him from having a go! I managed to do it, bung foot and all, they are actually a hoot!

today we are packing up and cleaning the house, then we drive back up to auckland to meet the people where we have our last house sit – 5 days from tuesday in birkdale, auckland, before flying out. We will stay at jeremy and leesi’s bach in Piha for tonite and tomorrow night, so a last visit to our favourite spot in NZ.