Easter blessings to everyone! Tomorrow we look forward to going to in person Easter services at the nearby church. If ever there were a time for hope and resurrection, this seems to be it.
No big adventures over the last few days. We’re putting up with our small and noisy motel by getting out and walking a lot. By now, we know many of Whangarei’s walking paths. And there are many. This town is really well served with walks. Frances even walked up Mt. Parihaka again. Today, we walked to the town basin through Mair Park along the Hatea River. Mair Park is a lovely and extensive park. We passed through native forest with some very large trees and then through an extensive mangrove area.
A coffee at Mokaba Café by the marina, was followed by a quick look at the current in process community tapestry, and then a gander at the Hundertwasser Art Center, which is still under construction but now has a rooftop garden of native trees.
Vienna-born Friedensreich Hundertwasser was acclaimed for his work with colour and mosaics and became especially famed for his conversions of industrial buildings into works of art in Europe and Japan. He spent most of the last 30 years of his life living and working in Northland and became a New Zealand citizen. The art gallery has been 27 years in the making (and counting) and represents a public and private partnership. We look forward to visiting the finished building on a future visit.
After our coffee, we explored the town center, in part looking for the finished tapestry at the Forum. We had to peer at it through the window as the place was closed on Easter Saturday.
On our way back, we discovered another walking path alongside the train tracks. This one seems to go for miles. It connects the town library downtown with several schools – and happens to pass about a block from our motel.
Earlier this week, we met friends Lesley and John for a lovely extended catch-up lunch. It’s not often that we are in the same country at the same time, so this was a treat.
Then yesterday, we drove up the Tutukaka coast to enjoy a picnic and the lovely beaches.
The day before, we helped our niece ready her new house. (Mopped floors, walls, and ceilings, unpacked and assembled furniture – sorry no photos.) We’ve not been idle, just not a lot to showboat on.
Tonight, New Zealand goes off daylight saving, which makes the time gap with the US 1 hour more. US Eastern Time has “sprung ahead” to UTC-4 and NZ “falls behind” to UTC+12, making NZ now 16 hours ahead of US Eastern Time. This is more usefully expressed as NZ being 8 hours behind but on the next day (+24-8=16). Confused yet? Use “timeanddate.com”.
On Monday we head to Auckland. Jim needs a negative pre-departure Covid test prior to his flight home on April 8. Frances needs some high speed internet for a work project, so we’ve got an apartment in Auckland for a week. It’ll be new grounds for us to explore.