Country life

On New Year's Day 2006 Peter returned to Melbourne to work and the girls and I continued our month-long party. Alex came to the hotel to help us load up and take Peter to the airport while the girls and I headed off in the Jeep for our road adventure. Our first stop was with Vicki and Ed in Martinborough. We have enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of these two great friends on many occasions in the past and this was no exception. The girls were game enough to get in the pool, loved playing with Puddy the cat and we ate superbly as always. Ed took me on a tour of their other property along the road where they are planting lots of trees and will build a house one day. The next morning we bade Ed and Vicki farewell and set off for the biggest driving day of our road trip.

Our destination for lunch was Michael Houstoun and Mike Nicolaidi's house in Colyton, near Fielding. Unfortunately, the day with most distance to cover also cooincided with gale force winds over much of the country and we struck a couple of detours due to power lines coming down. My appalling sense of direction meant that we detoured in several unintended ways so didn't show up at Michael and Mike's till about 2:30. We made the most of our short time together though. It was great to catch up with Michael's Mum, Ngaire, his sister Patricia and her two sons, Daniel and Tim. Mike took the girls out to frolic with their lovely tame goats and showed them how to feed them.

Later in the afternoon we left Colyton and drove north to a farm not too far from Taumaranui belonging to Dr Margaret Liley. Margaret's son, Bill, was in my class in Form 2 and her daughter, Helen, was a year behind me at Epsom Girls' Grammar and flatted with me in Boston. I had heard about this farm for most of my life but this was the first visit. Bill and his family who live in Auckland were at the farm too. Bill took us for a quick tour of some of the scenic highlights of the 2000 acre cattle, sheep and tree farm. The girls even got to try their hand at sheep mustering (possibly wrong technical term).

Later Bill and his son, Jack, had to put up a bit of fence so two vehicles full of entourage accompanied them on a more extensive tour and played and wandered about while they worked.

After the fence expedition we trekked down to the river and most of us actually got in the water. Bill's wife, Karen, and I sat it out at river's edge being allergic to cold water.

The rest of the afternoon passed with trampolining, gathering pine cones for the barbie and just enjoying our little taste of country life. After the barbie when it was dark all the assembled kids played spotlight - hide and seek with a torch. In the morning we waved Bill and family off back to Auckland and then packed ourselves up to leave. We were also heading for Auckland but were going to take another eight days to get there. We took some goodye photos with Margaret and her adopted daughter, Stephanie and Mrs Mackie, Bill and Karen's dog who was staying on the farm for another few weeks.