Leigh Sawmill Cafe and Accommodation North Island

... business for more than 60 years, and the matriarch told us stories of its beginning, while we sipped a few of their top wines. If you can find a bottle, their Hunting Hill and Mate's Vineyard C******nays were our favorites.

Loving it here already!!!

P.S. For those new to blogging, you can click on the photos at the bottom to enlarge them and scroll through them. Be sure to go to the last uploaded image to see some video!

... but for different reasons. I have missed not riding over the last 10 years or so, and was looking forward to getting back in the saddle. To Lucy, Dan and Jeff it was a new adventure. Jeff had a lovely looking horse called Cruise, who came out to meet us with his ears pricked - very interested and keen to go out.......always a good sign! Cruise had obviously been doing this for a while and gave Jeff a good ride, although it was Cruise ...

... everything. Absolutely delicious!

Last night Jimmy & Ivana came over for the evening. Jimmy & I cooked a nice traditional spaghetti bolognaise. Mmmmm... I'm soon off to check out the YMCA gym next door. I'm thinking of joining in the kick boxing exercise classes (haha). Luckily, it's just 100m from this new hotel & guests get a cheaper entrance.

Today we made a deal & bought a car! :) Tomorrow we pick it up (have a hire car at ...

... of pain all day for me today. A few training rides would have done me the world of good in the couple of weeks prior to leaving Oz, but it's so hard having become a beer swilling pie scoffing cant. My legs were in pain all day, simply not used to the pedaling, while my butt could definately feel the extra 9kgs of gravity prone blubber trying to ram the seat up my ********. When i rolled into Chevoit at 4:30 (about half an hour behind Jackson, I thought about doing a few more ...

... shipwrecked people survive. Amusingly enough, Goat Island in this case never actually had any goats as they released pigs instead. The pigs later escaped the island by swimming ashore however, so that plan had a few flaws in it aparently... The reason we went there is that it is a marine reserve which has various colourful fish swimming real close to the shore. Normally you can just sit at the edge and almost ...

... teeming with life. (To us they also look like brilliant hottub designs made by mother nature... Minus the electricity to produce the bubbles :P) While wandering around we saw (and were educated about by Chrissy) large collections of mini-mussels (MICRO-mussels almost really) sticking to various rock-surfaces. They are only about 5-6mm long, but there really are HUNDREDS of them covering the rocks like a carpet of sorts. To make a meal out of them you would probably ...

... sehen aber was wir nicht wussten, man wird dabei ganz schoen nass. Gegen viertel nach drei verliessen wir die Hoehlen und hatten einen Kaffee in Wellsford um unser naechsten Ziel zu besprechen. Wir beschlossen, in Leigh zu uebernachten und gelangen dort um 18.30h. Leigh ist ein kleines Dorf am Meeresufer und so parkierten wir am Wasser, waren aber vorher noch was essen im Portside caffe mit 2 Glaeser Wein, so dass wir spaeter toll einschlafen konnten...

... up if you dig yourself a hole. A cheap spa for becca is all that i was thinking. Anyhow we drove up to the cormandel and popped into waterworks basically loads of fun to be had with water pistols and flying foxes they zipped along nicely untill you hit the tyres and the end and almost came off the thing. perfect for us two kids. as the rain started we settled in the van as it bucketed it down like we were in ...

... to the toilet waste dump point on the campsite!! I get no help at all from Mrs Waspe with this chore, who recoils at the thought of lending a hand. We made good progress driving from Russell to Orewa Beach, pausing for a quick lunch stop on the way at a very good lookout point. Orewa Beach was hyped up a bit too much in the Lonely Planet as being the next Gold Coast ...

... te kunnen schilderen.
Campbell kwam thuis en bracht het broetje van Lewis, Rosco, mee. Lewis en Rosco waren allebei een paar dagen oud toen ze door Katie en Campbell in huis genomen werden en zijn met de fles grootgebracht. Rosco is daarna als werkhond naar een schapenboerderij van Campbell's oom gebracht, maar na een jaar bleek dat hij eigenlijk niet in dezelfde wei als het vee wil zijn.... Dus is hij nu weer terug.
Campbell en ik zijn toen ...