Feb 29 – Piha
It rained quite heavily in the night and we had a heck of a time trying to dry the tent and fly out. It was pretty overcast but we did get a few glimpses of the sun. We finally got everything mostly dry so we could pack up. No one showed up to collect our camp fees so we had a free campsite last night. We headed into the little town of Piha to check out the beautiful beach there. It was spectacular even though the weather was not promising. We walked along the beach and saw a bunch of starfish, birds and surfers. We had some fun with tripod photos, Beau and I goofed around a bunch. We really enjoyed our beach walk and took a ton of photos. We decided that because of the weather we would head back to Auckland early and arrived at Elaine's around 12:30. We were very luck because both Elaine and Shane were home. We were also very lucky because their neighbours had recently moved out and we were able to park in their empty spot. Beau and I were starved so we went to a nearby food court and got some Indian food for lunch. Mine was a little bland but Beau's was pretty tasty. We then did some grocery shopping at the Asian food store, Countdown, and the Auckland fish market. We caught the free shuttle most of the way back to Elaine's. We did some laundry then I started on Tabouli salad to go with dinner. We made green curry muscles, they were amazing. I made up a green curry sauce then put the muscles in to steam. We also had focatia bread to dip in our curry sauce. I will definitely be making muscles like that again. We finished the evening with a movie called Tower Heist which was quite funny.
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| Piha Beach |
Mar 1 – Goodbye Wingroad
Today we had to return our trusty Wingroad. We'll be sad to see him go, he was a good little car. So we dropped the car back at the rental company. They were a little surprised by the car being returned there since when we rented the car the computer systems were down and when the rental later got put into the system it was entered that we would be returning it to Christchurch. Of course our paperwork said otherwise and we returned it no problem. We got a ride back to Elaine's place and Beau popped out to pick up some avocado, tomato and chips for lunch. We did some laundry and got the tent, tarp and sleeping bags aired out. Later I went to go get a hair cut. I went to a hair academy down the road and got a $25 hair cut. The guy that cut my hair was not what I expect of a hair stylist graduate. He was middle aged, possibly middle eastern (his name might have been Housain), and barely said a word. He did an alright job but I just ended up with a blunt cut. One of the teachers asked me if I was going to be in the area for a little while because he was wondering if I could be a hair model. But obviously I'm leaving in two days so that wasn't going to happen. When I got back Elaine was home from school and I had almost forgotten we were supposed skype Mom and Dad soon. We all had a nice chat and I got to see and say hello to my monster Monty. I kind of miss the little bugger. Shane and Elaine made tacos for dinner and then we watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. Afterwards Beau and I skyped a couple in Melbourne, Monique and Ingo, who we might be house sitting for. They were very kind and offered to pick us up from the airport and said we could stay there until we started our HelpX placement. We took the up on the offer.
Mar 2
This morning I skyped with Grandy for little bit. We had a lovely chat but the next time we talk she will be living in Kelowna. It's too bad we weren't able to visit her at her house in Wales but ca la vie! Beau and I got all our stuff packed up and ready to go for the morning. We have to catch a very early bus to the airport tomorrow so we want everything ready. Beau needed to exchange his snorkel since it was a little leaky and then Elaine came home from school. We were all going to go out together, Elaine and I had some shopping to do but then we realized we were going to be skyping cousin Kate soon. So Beau went and did his thing while Elaine and I got to have a great chat with Kate. We were meeting up with Shane for dinner and since Elaine and I didn't have a chance to go shopping earlier we decided to do a little before hand. Poor Beau got dragged along with us. We didn't do too much shopping, at least we didn't think so, but we were able to find me something for my birthday. We met Shane at an Indian restaurant and the food was super good. We split four different dishes with some naan and rice. Yum. We headed back to their house and watched another episode of Game of Thrones. We were up pretty late chatting and will probably only have about 3 or 4 hours of sleep tonight.
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