Away we go-a to Omokoroa

Away we go-a 

To Omokoroa 

In Wellsford no longa, W

We're now near Tauranga

    We said farewell to Lesley and Cathy with a platter of Hainanese chicken.

 

    On the way to Tauranga we stopped in at the Auckland Botanical Gardens, where we took a photo of Deb having a sit on a park bench with a real Kiwi lady. 

    We stopped at a town later on where she could cop a gander at the newspaper that "Barry the kiwi bloke" was reading, with his "best friend Jack". These photos are here especially for Cathy and Lesley to enjoy - they'll understand why.

 

    We stopped for a bottle of Lemon & Paeroa - I was curious to taste the naturally effervescent mineral water and lemon soft drink, and read about the mineral content...happily used by the nearby gold miners as a restorative after a wild Saturday night. I paid a bit too much for a bottle, only to discover that what I'd purchased was a fraudulent imitation - the bogus version of this famous popular soft drink is now manufactured by Coca-cola. Townsfolk say "they do a good job, got the taste pretty close"...but then, they would, wouldn't they... 

    I enjoyed looking at plants from Cape Province in S. Africa, which grow very well in New Zealand; they're both at the same latitude, but whereas New Zealand has 2400 indigenous plants, Cape Province had 26,000. 

    We also saw New Zealand's three varieties of tree ferns, the Mamaku, the Wheki and the Ponga. The third one is the silver fern which is the emblem of New Zealand, as Canada's is the Maple Leaf; it is on all the flags and on the All Blacks rugby jerseys. The ancient Scottish custom of wearing a sprig of a specific bit of vegetation to identify you as a member of a particular clan just never seems to die away. For Scots today, of course, the emblem is the thistle.

      Valentine's Day dinner: Warwick, Judith, Roger, Chris, Deb, me and Judith's hydrangeas Warwick and Chris are retired teachers and flower growers (retired from both) who work about seven hours a week selling a special oxalis weed-killer from their home that they make up by the batch. They have a lovely "bach" looking out over the harbour in Omokoroa, with a steep hillside garden and orchard behind them. 

    On Tuesday morning I climbed "the Mount", Mt. Maunganui with Warwick, who is a pretty fit 65 year-old - a former Olympian (our second former Olympian couchsurfing host) field hockey player. Deborah and Chris opted to walk around the circumference at the bottom. 

    We had lunch of meat pies from Patrick's Pies - Patrick Lam has won the national pie award for at least six years of the last decade, including an amazing run of four years straight. Like in Australia, meat pies are the answer to N. America's hamburgers - they come in many varieties and are a delicious, inexpensive lunch. 

    You could be forgiven for thinking we are in the Holy Land...we're in the Bay of Plenty, and after coming down from "the Mount", we were near a suburb of Tauranga which is called Judea, and we ate our pies in a town called Bethlehem. It's possible that God lives here, in the persona of a guy called Frosty Man - check out this amusing little video. 

    At home we shared photos and memories of Africa and other travels. Warwick and Chris have been to Madagascar twice and intend to go again. They have an adopted family there now, which began with one girl they took a shine to and have put through high school. Now she is at nursing college. 

    We had a dinner of lamb roast and many delicious side dishes with six of us around the table - Roger and Judith, two flower growers still in the business, who had also travelled to Madagascar with Warwick and Chris, joined us to celebrate and toast Valentine's Day. They brought some enormous hydrangeas, one of the flowers which they export. It was a fine day and a very pleasant evening. 

    I can't close this post without telling you about Freddy the Couchsurfing Seal, who lives here in Tauranga. Freddy Furseal even had his own Couchsurfing account page when we were there, but it has since been deactivated.  

    Today's photos are here, and there's another cute tourism video for New Zealand here. You'll understand it a bit better if you know that a common New Zealand turn of phrase is an unfinished comment: "Sweet as...". You can also say, "Tidy as..." (often sarcastically followed with "Tidy as...yeah, right!"); "Neat as...", "Tired as...", "Hungry as...", "Good as...", "Funny as..." - anything you like. I'm tempted to create a new one to use in an appropriate circumstance: "Incomplete as..."

Next stop: Whakatane