Happy New Year

It is hard to believe that we are five days into 2020. New years eve was a quiet day in and Sally bought delicious fish and chips for our tea at our second temporary accommodation. 
We really had no intention of staying up to watch the new year in but, somehow we were awake at midnight and caught a glimpse of the fireworks on Sky Tower.

Our new year day visit was to a garden centre. We started with lunch. The garden centre shops have a great view over the harbour.

Next we went to Bunnings where Sally bought soil and other stuff. I took a photograph of my watch showing '2020 1 1'

On Tuesday we had a grown ups visit to Sylvia Park shopping centre. The big change since we were there four years ago is that they have a KMart. All the prices are good and I was able to buy a pair of pale blue shorts.
Two of the places that we told Sally that we would like to visit were Maraetai and Cockle Bay. Suddenly we were in the car and off. Maraetai is a reasonable distance from Auckland. It is a quiet little seaside town. There is always plenty of room to park a car along the front. The sea is a lovely green and the beach is golden, but shelly. A row of building which are mainly cafes face the sea and Waiheke Island is not far from the shore. A group of Maori folk were on the short pier and spend ages delighting in jumping into the sea.

After lunch we decided to drive on round the headland. All along were almost private beaches, occupied by a family.

We drove as far as a pair of modern Maori boats.

Opposite was a modern Maori Marae. This something like a village surrounding a meeting hall.

On the way back we called in to Cockle Bay. This was busier than when we visited last time as we are still in school holidays. However, there was still a massive amount of car parking and the beach was not unduly busy. Cockle Bay is what it says; a beach covered in cockles. (There are restrictions covering the taking of cockles.) The water was a beautifully clear with a green hue and fish could easily be seen near the shore.

 Saturday is always shopping. Ian and me went for short walk down by St Heliers. It was far too windy to take Bubbles for his walk on the beach. In fact it was very windy at PAK'nSAVE. Sally managed to lose one bag to the gale force wind.

On Sunday the four adults and the dog went down to Kohi to dog walk and have coffee. Ian then invited us to go to a farmers market at Hobsonville Point. Hobsonville Point is a peninsula that juts out into the Waitemata Harbour, a 20-minute drive northwest of Auckland's CBD. Until 2011 it was a defence base, but it is now being developed for all Aucklanders. (Source: Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities)
 It looks and feels very much like Milton Keynes and has a similar planning philosophy).
We had good fun looking around the market. We sampled and purchased some lovely cheese. The ice lollies were fascinating.

 The cupcakes were very tempting.

 Ferries come in to the pier from Auckland.

While Ian went to get the car we called in to the brewery. It looks like the brewery is in an old hangar.

The front part was full of customers.

Inside was shiny, modern brewing equipment.

 Almost as soon as we got back, at around 3 o'clock the sky suddenly darkened. Smoke from the Australian bush fires had coloured the sky of most of North Island. Unbelievably, over 100 people in Auckland called the authorities to tell them about it.

At 4 o'clock Sally drove us out to Acilles point for a view over the city. The car park was quite full. We even ran into friends of Zoe who had the same idea.

 It stayed dark all evening. Later I had to drive out to our last accommodation to feed the cat. It felt really eerie being alone on the street. No lighting in the house did not help and I felt for the owners coming back to their dark house.
This morning (Monday 6th) the sky is back to normal. The wind is very strong and, apparently, it rained overnight.