Whangarei continued

Well it's now Tuesday 7th May and we spent the night at a LCP (low cost parking for NZMCA members) near the river estuary in Ngunguru which is not much over 20 km out of Whangarei. Tutukaka our next stop on the coast is just around the corner. On the way here we were reminded of the English countryside as we drove past a lot of lovely dry stone walling on the farms, something you seldom see in NZ. It was pouring with rain when we arrived yesterday so we haven't been out to explore yet, instead playing a few games to keep the cabin fever at bay! However it is bright and sunny today and the washing is on, ready to hang out before we tootle round to the 9 hole golf course down the road.

We spent 2 extra days in Whangarei from what we had planned as our Samsung tablet, on which we are ultra-dependent for all our communications, googling and blog, suddenly died -just couldn't get it to switch on even with trying to recharge it on the mains at the golf club so we had to hang around until Monday to get a computer whizz to look at it which was duly done at Cocurullo Ltd. They had to open it up to give the battery a big boost charge and then it was all sweet!

Shot planning complete - next the real thing!

On Friday we played golf at Whangarei Mt Denby golf course which was in the same direction we were heading. We enjoyed the interesting, somewhat hilly course with a bushy path or two between holes and a par 3 that had a big lake in front of the green as well as bunkers - a bit of a
challenge but I managed to stay teetering on the edge of a bunker while Len's plopped beautifully into the edge of the lake. Fairways and greens were all in pretty good condition considering the long dry spell we have had up to now.

It was cloudy overhead but the rain held off until after we had played although it continued all that night and the next day. We stayed both Friday and Saturday nights at the golf club who welcome all NZMCA members. There was one other van there on Friday night and they asked us if they could park as close as possible to us for security reasons. I think they had just heard about a van that was broken into and hijacked at Whangarei and were extra worried. Anyway, it turned out that Barbara was born in Whitehaven and went to Grammar School there! They have now lived in NZ for about 30 years.

Sunday was a little brighter but there was still the odd shower about as we did a wander through town and down to the rivers edge where we had a coffee and treat at the very popular Mokaba Cafe where all the food looked, and was, delicious. In the afternoon we went to our 3rd movie in a year seeing The Croods in 3D - we look more 'down and out' these days and the nice man on the till let Len in as a Senior as well and gave us free 3D glasses but we did pay for our ice-creams. We enjoyed the light movie although it took me a little while to get used to all the animated violence!

Sunday night we returned to the RSA for our 3rd night non-consecutive - we had a nice corner spot and it is so handy to town.