June 2, 2007 Rodondo Beach, Calif, USA

June 2, 2007 Rodondo Beach, CA

A beautiful day here in Rodondo Beach California.  This has become a favorite stopping point for Joan and I since our cousin Beverly and her husband Joe introduced us to it three years ago.  They come down here to the beach almost every weekend during the summer from Palm Desert to escape the heat inland and also to enjoy the beach for bike riding.  From Rodondo up to Marina Del Rey is 12-14 miles of level paved bicycle path with only a couple of minor inclines.  The hotel of choice here is the Palos Verdes which is a little older but with a lot of character.  The thing that is nice is that when it's over 100F inland it's usually around 65-70F at the beach and very pleasant and just perfect for bike riding.

This year we arrived from the 11 hour oversea flight about 1PM after a delay docking the plane at the gate because someone that had checked in luggage didn't show for the flight (that's on the plane that was at the gate we were supposed to dock at).  After getting our luggage, renting a car and driving to the hotel we showered, rested awhile and then met up with Joe and Beverly for dinner.  The next day (2June) Joe and I went on a 25 mile bike ride up to Marina Del Rey and back (ouch on the hind side).  My other cousin Jeanne drove down from San Bernadino and the women went shopping to find a dress for Joan to wear to the wedding.  Success was had there.

It was a really nice time enjoying the beach atmosphere, the bicycling, seeing cousins and talking over old times.

Just as I was taking this picture at the beach this blond got right in the middle and ruined the picture.

OK - This is better!

Street Band at Marina Del Rey

Gotta get a boat like this - you can carry your own helicopter with you.

May 31, 2007, Takapuna Beach, New Zealand

Cheesecake at the GPK restaurant, Takapuna Beach

Last dinner together at Takapuna.

Other table at last dinner.

Spice cake with icecream at GPK - Ummmm!

Sunrise over the bay at Auckland.  Taken from beside Kea in Takapuna Beach campground.

May 31, 2007

Takapuna Beach (North Auckland), New Zealand

Another nice day as we drove down to Takapuna Beach from Kaitaia.  Late yesterday afternoon Carl and Bob turned in their Kea's at the Kea depot and then a taxi arranged by Kea took them to a hotel close to the airport after our last dinner together.  They had a flight around 6ish to fly to Cairns Australia.  They must have had to really get up early.

This morning there was a beautiful sunrise over the Auckland bay.  The Takapuna Beach campground is at a beautiful site and perfect for the last night's stay.  There is a walking trail that is very popular with the locals right along the campground and there are excellent restaurants within very easy walking distance.  The view is great from the campground and includes the city lights of Auckland after dark, container ships come and go to the Auckland port, a lot of sailboats and fishing boats are launched at the pubic launch next to the campground.  Someone said that we saved the best spot for last. Could be but at least it helps to ease the gloomy feeling of leaving mixed with the expectation of going home to other travels.

About 9AM two more couples left for Kea as they were going on to Sydney, Australia and those of us left flying to the States and Canada left around 2PM.

The flight back was good and about 11 hours long.  The only delay was at LAX as our 747 had to wait for the designated gate because someone booked for the plane there had failed to show for the flight and their luggage had to be found and removed from the plane.

Joan and I checked into the Palos Verdes Hotel in Rodondo Beach and later met up with my cousins to have a late dinner. 

Good to be back.

 

May 30, 2007, Kaitaia, New Zealand

Our entire partner family.

Last picture of the house.

 

Malcolm giving speech.

 

May 30, 2007

Another beautiful day of weather here in Kaitaia.

Last night's radio program went very well.  We had time to explain the Habitat programs, and about Global Village, and the Care-A-Vanners.  We understand that the program went nationwide.  Joan and I were very happy to have been invited to join Malcolm for the program.

This was our last day and we only worked until noon as a picnic has been planned at Kori's uncle's house.

We had been invited to attend a hangi ceremony at the families Mauri marae.  Uncle Peter an elder in the marae had come to the job site to explain what was going to happen at the hangi.  It was really touching as normally you cannot enter a marae unless your tribe (team in our case) has been accepted as friends of the Mauri tribe.  Once accepted you are considered part of the Mauri tribe and are basically part of their living family and part of their ancestors who have gone before.  Once accepted you can then go to the marae anytime that you wish from now on.  We all found this very moving and a symbol of the love that has grown between all of us.  Unfortunately one of the Mauri elders of this families tribe died and tradition is that they lay in state for a day at their home and then a number of days at the marae.  We were told that the elders had met and discussed delaying the lying in state of the elder for a day just so the hangi could be held.  In the end they decided that their tradition needed to be upheld so the hangi was cancelled.  It was explained that we should consider it an honor that they even considered delaying their ceremony for us.  We of course accepted this and would have had it no other way during their time of grieving.  We grieved along with them at their loss.

Kori and Michelle along with their aunt and uncle put on a great picnic at their uncle's home which was up on a hill overlooking beautiful farm land and a great sunset.  After many speeches and songs we called it an evening.

Another great day. 

May 29, 2007, Kaitaia, New Zealand

Front of house from street.

House from back.

Kauri and Latish.

Kori and Jack at teatime.

Our team on last day.

Wayland and Habicat.

May 29, 2007

The weather has been fantastic these last few days.

Well, just one more day. Today we worked on finishing up the soffit, work continued on the cladding, and some painting was going on inside.

Tonight Joan and I have been invited along with Malcolm, our project manager, to be interviewed on a one hour radio program to talk about Habitat, Habitat Global Village Care-A-Vanners, and our experiences in New Zealand.  It is a Maori station described to be similiar to our public radio here in the States.   It should be an interesting evening and we are looking forward to it.

The realization that our stay here in New Zealand is soon coming to an end has begun to hit us. 

All for now.

May 28, 2007, Kaitaia, New Zealand

Barb doing dovotions.

Esther painting.

Muffy with Habicat and Joan.

Kori, Jacinda, and Michelle at work.

Jacinda and Kori.

Michelle with Kauri.

Date:  Monday, May 28, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

 

Well, time is growing short for our stay in New Zealand. 

 

Today was a fine day with temps around 70F and mostly blue skies.  I worked with the soffit crew (pronounced here so-feet) all day and we’re gradually making it around the house.  Another crew is working on the siding (cladding) and they’re making good progress.  We are probably at least a half day behind schedule but circumstances probably won’t let us make up the work.  Today the linoleum crew began installing the linoleum floor coverings and Dave Reyburn brought the kitchen cabinets from Whangerai.  Tonight Malcolm and Kori are putting the polyurethane on the floors and hopefully they will be dry tomorrow.  Today everyone that worked in the house removed their shoes and worked in stocking feet to keep from dragging dirt all over the floors.

 

Tonight we had dinner at the Beachcomber Restaurant as guests of John and Carell and it was Carell’s birthday.  We had very nice meals and definitely rate the Beachcomber as our favorite here in Kaitaia.

 

Before dinner we stopped at McDonald’s where we had heard that they have wifi.  The person at the counter had no idea of what they had so we gave up on them.  As we were standing in McDonald’s a lady asked if we were with the Habitat group and if we were trying to find a wifi connection. She said that where she works there was one and if we wanted to stop by tomorrow she would help us connect.  Once again perfect strangers here in Kaitaia as everyplace in New Zealand offered assistance to us.  On the way to the restaurant we drove by the place that she said she worked but we could not find or connect to the wifi.  For the heck of it John kept his laptop on and we continued through town and we found an unlocked wifi connection so we parked and both got on the internet and were able to get and send mail.  Tomorrow there may be a lot of American visitors to those parking spaces.

 

All to report for today, another fine one.

 

May 27, 2007 Kaitaia, New Zealand

Ninety Mile Beach, next to campground.  60 miles of unspoiled beach, no condos, etc.

Kaitaia Anglican Church - went to church here Sunday.

Tombstones in Anglican cemetary.

Date:  Sunday, May 27, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

 

Today Linda, Roy, Doris, Joan, and myself went to the Kaitaia Anglican Church for worship.  The service we went to at 9:30AM was their contemporary service.  Since their traditional service was at 8:00AM we had opted for the later service.  The minister recognized our presence during the service and made us feel very welcome.  Part of his message was that you can do a lot of praying about something but at some point you have to take action on your own to put God’s word into action.  It was along the lines of “The Theology of the Hammer” that Millard Fuller wrote about.

 

After church we stopped by the house and found that the floors had been sanded but the sealant had not been put on yet.  This might be an interesting situation on Monday if we can’t work inside of the house.

 

On the way to the campground we stopped and had lunch at the Kauri Kingdom and did a little souvenir shopping there.  The staircase carved inside the kauri log is still amazing to see.  During the bus trip to Cape Reinga the bus driver pointed out a large field where they were digging trenches to look for buried kauri logs.  Apparently at some point in time there was a tsunami or other natural happening that caused a lot of trees to fall and be buried.  Since it’s against the law to cut down any kauri tree now they look for the one’s that were buried.

 

Back at the campground Joan and I took a walk down to the beach and found that we got there just in time to see a few people that had brought their horses and two wheel carts to ride on the beach.  They were just loading up the horses into the trailers.  We talked briefly to one or two and were told that they go out on weekends to ride on the beach or other trails around the Northland area.

 

The wind was so strong on the beach that our walk was relatively short and decided to treat ourselves to ice cream from the campground office.  Later at dinner some of us brought our dinners to the barbecue area to eat together.

 

It was a very nice day.

 

May 26, 2007, Kaitaia, New Zealand

Manganui Bay

Mauri carvings on top of Waitangi Marae.

Mauri waka (canoe) - a large one that requires 75 people to paddle.

Face on front of waka.

Inside of marae.

Cable Beach along Hiway 10 - where first communications cable landed on New Zealand.

 

Date:  Saturday, May 26, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

 

Today Charlie, Nila, Linda, Joan and myself took the Toyota van and headed over to Pahia with the intent of taking a boat over to Russell.  Along the way we came to a beautiful bay and pulled into a small park.  At the Tip Top Store across the street where we got ice cream cones (hokey pokey for me) we found out that this was the spot where the first communications cable that came to New Zealand landed.  They had a sample of the original cable on display along with a lot of photos from the time.

 

A little further along we stopped in Manganui where the fish market there has the best fish and chips in New Zealand as reported by our friends in Kaitaia.  As we were looking around town we came across Bob, Esther, Carl and Barb doing some shopping in some of the gift shops there.  Later as we were getting into the van Carl came over and said that they couldn’t get into their motor home and that the remote and the key would not work.  After some anxiety about the situation they found a window towards the rear of the motor home that was still open and as we were walking over they were hoisting Barb in through the window.  Their problems were not over though as none of the keys would work.  Something just was not making sense.  About this time Bob happened to think that he had another set of keys in his pocket and sure enough they had gotten switched.  Earlier Bob had asked for the keys from Carl to get something and ended up with both sets in his pocket and when Carl had asked for the keys back Bob had given him the keys to his camper.  This ended the crisis and provided the basis for a lot of story telling and laughter back at the campground.

 

We drove on to Kerikeri with stops there at the chocolate factory where we saw our first macadami nut trees and pickup a few that had fallen.  From there it was on down to Waitangi and a stop to see the treaty house where the government and Maori tribes had signed the peace treaty.  It was a beautiful area on the along the Pacific and extremely well manicured with hikes along the shore and through the forest in the reserve there.  The large waka there and the marae house were all very nice.

 

By the time we got to Pahia it was 4:30PM and decided that it was too late to go over to Russell so headed back to Kaitaia.  Along the way we stopped at Manganui and the fish market for dinner.  This was the same place that on a previous trip the tour bus had ordered fish and chips from for us.  To order a fish dinner you decide how many pieces of fish you want and whether you want one or more scoops of chips (French fries).  The fish are fresh in a pan in the display case and the server picks out the number of fillets that you wanted and weighs them which then determines the price of your meal.  The server suggested that one scoop of chips was enough for two people and she was right about that.

 

As we were driving towards the campground after reaching Kaitaia we were stopped by the police and a sobriety test was run on Charlie who was driving at the time.  The policeman said that random testing was being done.  Charlie passed with no problem and we went on to the campground.  We arrive about the same time as Carl and Barb and here he had also been stopped.  We read in the newspaper on Sunday that they had conducted 43,000 tests throughout New Zealand on Saturday.  Approximately 350 arrest had been made.

 

Again another interesting day here in New Zealand.

 

May 25, 2007 Kaitaia, New Zealand

Lunchtime

Morning - let's get to work.

A nice rainbow over house.

Doug, Salvation Army minister cooking us lunch.

Date:  Friday, May 25, 2007

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Today the door hanging was finished, the weather taping around the window frames continued plus a lot of other work pertaining to drying out the inside of the house so that the floors can be sanded and sealed.  I worked with another crew with Dave Reyburn’s guidance to start installing the soffits and fascia.  The crew working on the storage shed were having a lot of frustrations with that installation.  It is a kit building made of sheet metal but apparently with lousy instructions.  I decided that it was best to stay away from that area.

 

Malcolm’s dog Hoover was adopted as our mascot at the beginning of the project but a kitten has now adopted us and has been hanging out in the house as if it owns it and also hangs out in the one or two motorhomes that we normally bring to the site.  We don’t have a place on site to wash dishes after our morning and afternoon teas and lunch so we do that in the motorhome.  The cat by the way has been named Habicat.  I think more than one couple would like to bring the kitten along home with them.

 

At the campground there have been two fishermen staying there and fishing on the 90 Mile Beach.  They have been fishing for snapper and having a certain amount of luck.  However, they couldn’t eat all the fish that they catch and by law can’t sell it.  They packed up today to leave and gave us a nice amount of fish so a fish fry was held tonight.  One of the couples had some steak that went on the campground grill and someone else had some chicken so it turned into a nice group buffet meal.  The snapper was excellent by the way.

 

An interesting thing happened as we were sitting on the patio in the kitchen area of the campground after eating.  Esther noticed that there was smoke coming up from the area of the grill but John assured us that the grill was off and he had turned the gas off at the tank.  A few minutes later we all noticed the smoke was getting a bit worse and started investigating the situation.  Here the wood countertop had caught fire under the grill unit and was smoldering.  After squirting the area with a water bottle and a few cups of water from the kitchen the fire was mostly extinguished.  John notified the manager of the campground and she came by and was quite concerned.  They removed the grill so that no one would use it until the problem with the installation can be resolved.

 

Well, the days are always interesting here.

 

May 24, 2007 Kaitaia, New Zealand

I'll be able to work a lot better tomorrow.

Dave at work.

Date:  Friday, May 25, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

Today the door hanging was finished, the weather taping around the window frames continued plus a lot of other work pertaining to drying out the inside of the house so that the floors can be sanded and sealed.  I worked with another crew with Dave Reyburn’s guidance to start installing the soffits and fascia.  The crew working on the storage shed were having a lot of frustrations with that installation.  It is a kit building made of sheet metal but apparently with lousy instructions.  I decided that it was best to stay away from that area.

 

Malcolm’s dog Hoover was adopted as our mascot at the beginning of the project but a kitten has now adopted us and has been hanging out in the house as if it owns it and in the one or two motorhomes that we normally bring to the site.  We don’t have a place to wash dishes after our morning and afternoon teas and lunch so we do that in the motorhome.  The cat by the way has been named Habicat.  I think more than one couple would like to bring the kitten along home with them.

 

At the campground there have been two fishermen staying there and fishing on the 90 Mile Beach.  They have been fishing for snapper and having a certain amount of luck.  However, they couldn’t eat all the fish that they catch and by law can’t sell it.  They packed up today to leave and gave us a nice amount of fish so a fish fry was held tonight.  One of the couples had some steak that went on the campground grill and someone else had some chicken so it turned into a nice group buffet meal.  The snapper was excellent by the way.

 

An interesting thing happened as we were sitting on the patio in the kitchen area of the campground after eating.  Esther noticed that there was smoke coming up from the area of the grill but John assured us that the grill was off and he had turned the gas off at the tank.  A few minutes later we all noticed the smoke was getting a bit worse and started investigating the situation.  Here the wood countertop had caught fire under the grill unit and was smoldering.  After squirting the area with a water bottle and a few cups of water from the kitchen the fire was mostly extinguished.  John notified the manager of the campground and she came by and was quite concerned.  They removed the grill so that no one would use it until the problem with the installation can be resolved.

 

Well, the days are always interesting here.

 

May 23, 2007 Kaitaia, New Zealand

Date:  Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

Today was a good day for ducks.  We had almost continuous rain and at times a downpour for most of the morning and into part of the afternoon.  The roofers were trying to put the metal roof on but finally got rained out.  The water collected on top of the ceiling panels and then would leak down through any hole that it could find resulting in water all over the floors inside the house.  Three people were continuously pushing water out the doorways. 

 

Outside one crew worked through most of the rain putting up the insulation between the battens.  At one point they were afraid that if they slipped in the mud on the high side they might end up under the house someplace before they stopped.

 

I worked with a crew of three or four screwing the ceiling panels up to the bottom of the trusses.  This had to be done before the temporary support system could be removed underneath.  We had to drill holes for the screws and then countersink the hole so that the screws would install correctly.  The only problem was that every time we would drill a hole the rain water from on top the ceiling would start pouring out.  The trick was to stick the screw into the hole quickly.  We managed to get about three fourths of the house done and will finish tomorrow.

 

This evening we went to the RSA (Returned Service Association) for dinner.  Had a dory fish dinner with chips.  Pretty good!

 

Even with the rain it was still a good day.