Farewell Tour

After the Covi Show we headed north to Whangarei to say goodbye to my sister & family before we head south in a few weeks. It could be at least a couple of years before we are back up this way again although with a nephew at Otago Uni we’re likely to meet up down there at some stage.
On the way up I managed to get a couple of church photos to add to my collection. It’s a pity that we have the van on the back as it’s much harder to do little side trips to find the churches. These two were only just off the main road with reasonable places outside to turn around in.

The iconic Puhoi Church, St Peter & Paul built in 1881. Puhoi was New Zealand's first Bohemian settlement.

 

Kaiwaka St Pauls. It’s a pity there are so many overhead cables & power poles around the churches sometimes, they make it hard to get a clean shot. I’ll have to do some photo-shopping! 

 

We made good time to Whangarei, visited the public dump station to offload the last weeks waste & arrived up the family’s drive around 5:30pm. Luckily there was a bit of light left in the day as it took a fair bit of manoeuvring to get “Out There” over there including rearranging  the edge of the rock garden somewhat!

Jerry helped out with directions

 

Either the van had grown or the yard had shrunk but we’re sure it was a lot bigger last time we visited. We are tucked up under the willows & beside the cherry blossom with a little babbling brook passing by the rear of the van. Unfortunately it is once again raining & the brook is growing in size. I think a water rat has just been de-homed as I saw him scuttling off, away from the van, he tried to climb a tree but fell off. Hmm……I hope he continues upstream.