A Week in Whangarei

You can see Rheba watching the sunset if you look close. It's been a whirl wind week with Phil, Rheba, and Cheryl but our time together is closing. Tomorrow after work we will head to Orewa for a few days before they fly back to the US. Then it is on to the South Island for us for 2 weeks. I'm not sure what the campervan will do for internet so we may be off the blog for a few weeks. Before we left I thought the family might enjoy these pictures from the Nichols' visit. It will be very hard to see them go and stay behind for the remaining 3 months here. The medical work is coming along and we have made some wonderful friends here but we will return from the South Island and start the finishing work. Showing the area to family this week has reminded me how beautiful NZ is visually. Today when we were admiring the water, mountains, and flowers Cheryl made the comment that it would be hard to believe this beautiful diverse planet just happened. I happened to find an e-mail this week from long ago when all this NZ/Australia ideas started brewing in us because our friend Gene Baillie had been practicing in Australia and working with the Presbyterian church there. It is not glamorous work here and we have not made a lot of money but it has been God inspired, life changing, and breathtakingly beautiful. I hope we have been able to share a bit of that with our summer time visitors these past few weeks and with you blog catchers over the months.

Whale Bay for a late afternoon beach walk. The view in the photo below shows the overlook on the path down to the beach.

We went to an indoor pool with an outdoor high dive which the kids braved.

Papa rode down the slide with Anna.I watched a friend's kids that day and they all wanted to camp out. They didn't sleep outside though.
After church we went to Waipu for pizza and beach time.

Miguel gave more surf lessons. The guys threw rugby ball on the beach.
There was a lot of lazing around too. You can see Andrew with the Abascal's new "puppy".

While we worked on Monday Phil drove the crew around to Whangarei falls (see below).

There was a stop at the yacht basin playground too.

The "Perfect Day" was a motor boat for snorkeling and scuba diving out at the world reknown Poor Knights Islands. Scroll down to see Phil in a wetsuit!

Afterwards we ate Schnapper Rock in Tutukaka. I am not sure who won at checkers.

There were sweet moments around the house like fishing at the dock and....

......barbequing whole snapper with a view of the bay from our deck.

We went to Russell for a day trip to pick up Cheryl who had stayed there a few nights with Nate before he had to go back to work. The 360 view from the flag staff is amazing but can't be fully captured in pictures.

It was a hot day so sitting in the shade was really nice.

Today we packed and did laundry preparing for a nine person departure tomorrow. Then it was off for a late afternoon beach walk at Paihau, dinner at the Parua bay tavern, and sunset watching at Reotahi.

It was a perfect sunset to a perfect week here in Whangarei.