Huge apologies, Wix the Blog system that I use, made some changes during the new year and the automatic email notifications function was changed! I’ve tried to sort it out so hopefully those of you who are interested will get this last blog. Annoyingly I have been writing every day since 1st January, but only realised things were not working until yesterday. If you are at all interested you can read the blogs by logging into the website sailingpolepole.com
We came into the marina on a glorious sunny morning, the view across to the Whangarei heads is amazing and we hope to do some of the great walks from there, when we are back 7 February.
We haul out 7am Wednesday morning so we have a day to do laundry, wash the boat and tidy up. There is a long list of repair works to be done on the boat and while we are away we hope to get a lot more solar installed.
Wednesday evening Roy and Libby are taken us to a cultural footprint tour on the other side of the island, a guide brings to life the stories of the first Polynesians to arrive at these shores 1000 years ago. We all fly to Wellington on Friday and join Libby’s mum in Greytown for a food and wine festival, which sounds a lot of fun. After that we fly to the South Island and head to the west coast to do our 5 day cycle tour, Roy, Libby and Carol are cycling with us and Clinton (Rowan’s brother) is joining us – a real family affair! At the end we are doing an Alpine train ride back to Christchurch. We are hiring a car there and driving down to Wanaka near the bottom of South Island, to visit Rowan’s niece Kirsty. On the way down we will visit Melody and Gerald, great Suffolk friends who moved to NZ many years ago. So an action packed last month in NZ.
We fly to South Africa on 14 February, so looking forward to Phoebe’s wedding on 8 March. We will be having the whole of April back in the UK and looking forward to Easter with all the kids. Hope to catch up with many of you along the way.
We head back to the boat 1 May, planning to head to New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Indonesia by Christmas we hope. I’m going to give up on the Wix blog, it is a system that is driven by monetisation, not my aim at all, so I will be writing on a new platform, just haven’t decided what yet.
Signing off and hoping you all have a fun filled 2025.
Leaving the Whangarei heads
Stunning coastline with lovely walks we want to do
Entering Marsden Cove marina
Birds at low tide
A more industrial backdrop
The extraordinary rock formations at Whangarei Heads
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