Gallivanting at Gisborne's great beaches

The drive to Gisborne from Wellington is not for the faint hearted - some 500km and approx 7 hours of driving, more when you take into account any stops you might want to make on the way. Which was another reason I was so nervous of making the journey after my Crohn’s disease had flared up - tummy cramps at home are one thing, tummy cramps on the road and the nasty violent smell they produce and I end up inflicting on my poor family in the car as well as the thought I may need to find a toilet in a hurry are quite another. But in any event, we decided we would try and make the journey.  Armed with a hot water bottle for my tummy, and leaving at 9am on Good Friday we’d decided to head over the Rimutaka Hill and avoid any Easter traffic issues on the main drag out of Wellington. Both the boys (who aren’t known for getting car sick) complained that they weren’t feeling great on the short and windy hop over the hill to the Wairarapa but we said to take deep breaths and look out the window. Lo and behold, Noah opens up the window and sticks his head out - I thought he was just getting fresh air but he was actually puking out the window at 100 km/hr. 

After stopping to check out the carnage - luckily most of it seemed to have missed both him and the car we were on our way again, and a much less eventful trip ensued after that. It takes about 4-4.5 hours to reach the Hawkes Bay, all on pretty good roads, but we knew the next section through to Wairoa would be a lot more windy so were a little nervous how that would go. But the boys feel asleep for a good chunk of that section and we arrived unscathed in Wairoa mid-afternoon. After a ice-cream stop we were on our way again, and hoping to stop  off at the Morere Hot Springs about half an hour further on.

It was more than a little frustrating to come to a complete stop only a couple of kilometres from Morere along with all the other traffic on State Highway 2 because some numpty hadn’t secured their trailer load of feed and it was spread all over the road. After waiting about 20 minutes at a standstill while the road was cleared, we were on our way again. We arrived at Morere at 4pm and had a delicious soak in their Nikau Plunge Pools which are a 7 minute walk up into the native bush through the gorgeous nikau palms. I found I was only able to manage a slow decrepit walk to get there but it was worth it for the lovely warmth of the mineral pool - so much so that I didn’t really want to get out again afterwards.

From there, we drove over the hill and Poverty Bay was suddenly spread out before us, a vast coastal plain. Coming into Gisborne we were surprised at how tropical everything seemed with palm trees dotted right along the main street. We found our accommodation, a very spacious 2-bedroom villa in Inner Kaiti, very close to town, and gobbled takeaways. The boys watched McCaulay Kulkin in Richie Rich while I dozed on the couch, just happy to have made the journey there in one piece!

We were treated to brilliant sunshine on our first full day in Gisborne. However, my illness and general well being meant I had to take it very easy each morning, so there was no rushing out the door to get to an activity - rather a slow and leisurely pottering around that might eventually mean we got out the door near lunchtime. The boys and I got stuck into a game of Phase 10 (from the makers of Uno) whilst Mark went out and got some shopping. Then it was coffees and hot cross buns before we decided to make our way down to Waikanae Beach for a picnic lunch.

The boys set up their cricket set and had a happy couple of hours playing although the wind had definitely gotten up by this point. After walking the promenade and spotting both the monument to Captain Cook and Young Nick we then drove up Kaiti Hill to take in the views of the whole town and local area.

I had some appreciation for the importance of Gisborne in NZ’s history - I knew that Captain Cook had landed here first but it was wonderful to read and take in more of the history - the fact that Young Nick’s Head (the white cliffs clearly visible across the bay from Gisborne) was the first sighting of land made by Nicholas Young in 1769, a young lad on board the Endeavour. Also interesting was that Poverty Bay was so named by Cook after his first landing and communications with the Maoris did not go well resulting in him leaving without being able to trade for any provisions and the name has stuck despite the fertile region being anything but poor. It was fascinating to see how far Cook travelled in his three journeys around the world, and the impact he had on the understanding of the world in those days, sailing through and charting largely unknown areas of the globe. After his first mishap, he also landed at Anaura Bay and Tolaga Bay further north of Gisborne with more success. As well as being the first to circumnavigate NZ, he largely mapped out the whole of the country with relatively minor errors. He returned to NZ on both his subsequent expeditions before being killed in an incident with Hawaiian islanders in 1779. Amazing to think the impact this short 10 years had on world history.

After taking a photo with another state of Cook up on Kaiti Hill we headed out to Wainui Beach, which despite being a surf beach was remarkably less windy and warmer than the main town beach had been. Mark and Noah got good use out of their body boards while Mylo made a new friend and enjoyed running and splashing in the waves for a good hour.

The waves were just right for catching some great waves - I love some of these action shots I got of Noah weaving in and out of the waves.

Gosh it's a lovely beach and we could have spent much longer there, either that or come again if we'd had more time!

It's hard to believe looking back now that it was so lovely and warm when the country then had its first widespread snowfall just two weeks later.

We had such a lovely day out there that I can guarantee it won't be the last time we visit Gisborne's glorious beaches!

So why the Waikato? {MNM's on the move}

Hopefully if you didn't already know our news, you've read yesterday's post here about the journey of selling our house in Wellington and our plan to move to the Waikato.

So now that the house is sold....what's the actual plan for the MNM's?!

We are going to live in Cambridge(which is about 25 minutes drive from Hamilton and about 20 minutes drive from where my parents live out in the country. Cambridge is such a lovely town and I've never heard anyone say a bad thing about it - Hamilton on the other hand..... lol! When we first had the idea of moving we thought that inevitably we would live in Hamilton but neither of us could really get terribly excited at the prospect - although it's changed a lot in the twenty years since I last lived there at university and has much more going for it now I will admit despite the rep it has!

But Cambridge also held a lot of appeal for us from the various visits we've had there over the past year or so visiting the kids bike park and also walking around the lovely lake in the centre of town (the pictures below are from our afternoon spent here before Christmas) so we figured why not experience smaller town life in a lovely leafy setting, with cycleways and greenbelt galore and a good football club to boot. The only thing that could initially be frustrating is the volume of state highway 1 traffic that goes through town - but with the expressway due to open in a year and a half hopefully that will be resolved in the near future.

We spent some time looking around Cambridge on our recent holiday over Easter. We were meant to be spending this time in Ohope but because I'd been so ill, we decided to cancel it and go straight to mum and dads for a couple of nights. This actually proved to be a wise move as it gave us two good days to look around and get a feel for the different housing areas and schools there.

With all the enrolment zones in place, we're still not 100% sure which school the boys will go to yet - there are 3 primary schools in the town all of which seem to have good facilities and are a similar size so at this stage we think any of them would be OK - but if anyone knows anything helpful that might distinguish between them - do tell! The big sticking point is that we can't actually enrol them until we have either a rental contract or house contract signed but we're working on that part of course and want to be able to get them settled in as soon as possible.

Work wise, we are both going to be working for my brother Sam's very successful and growing bike business - Evolution Cycles. It had always been the plan from the start that Mark would join the business if we moved north - the basic gist of his role to be out and about managing the 4 stores and up to 30 staff. I'd initially wondered if I might be able to keep doing my current role remotely but when I raised the idea with my boss he wasn't very keen - I understand why to a certain extent but that meant I then had to think about plan B.  Then a few conversations later with Sam, we worked out that actually there are a number of areas where my accounting and commercial skills can add real value to Evolution Cycles in its current phase of growth, so I'm really excited at the prospect of helping him grow the business bringing the skills I have to the table. So for us, this made the prospect of the move up an easier equation, knowing we didn't have to worry about looking for work once we got here.

Settlement day on our place is Friday 5 June - which is just over 7 weeks away. But we also have a trip to Rarotonga for my brother Sam and his fiancé Alesha's wedding on the 25 May for a week to try and fit around packing up our lives here as well. We arrive back from Rarotonga on Tuesday 2 June and move out 3 days later on the Friday so it's going to be busy times - we haven't yet decided exactly when we will finish up work, when the kids will finish school or any of that stuff but we know the details will work themselves out along the way. We are trusting God that He has a great plan in store for us on this next exciting adventure in our lives.

Don't get me wrong it is going to be VERY hard for us all to say goodbye to the life we have here in Wellington. Thirteen years is a long time to live in one place, and we have a very well established life here with so many friends made over the years from different workplaces, churches, school and sporting groups. We know it is going to be an emotional roller-coaster over the next few weeks, but we are also believing that what God has lined up for us is equally awesome...

There's been a lot of times I'd like to have shared more along the way about where our heads were at and what was happening, but it really wasn't the right timing to be able to do so, so instead you've got it all in one big bad brain dump! So if you've made it to the end of these very long posts explaining what we are up to...well done for hanging in there!

And I'll try not to bore you silly with posts about packing up and saying our goodbyes but that's going to be our reality for the next few weeks at least....