As
we took off, Tea said “It feels sweet and sour”. I was puzzled for a fraction of a
second. Ah, she means bittersweet…
The
last week has been hectic, packing our lives’ belongings and loading them all
onto three trucks to be transported to the container at the port, getting our
house renovated and spruced up for the tenants who will come and live in our
home, making sure we have all the necessary vaccinations and papers for our
world trip, trying at the same time to be sensitive to the girls’ emotional
reactions to all this happening. Thank
goodness for friends, mothers and godmothers!
As
we landed in Auckland in the dark of night, we could hardly see a thing but we
already knew what a perfect place it was to start the world trip. Our rental car was waiting for us as
promised. We drove an hour and a half to
the bach near Matheson Bay where our lovely friends Liz and Rupert were
waiting, half asleep, but with champagne and wine glasses waiting. Liz and Rupert lived in Malaysia for several
years and we had become fast friends. They
came back to NZ about more than a year ago.
Liz and I made several escapades together to Vietnam and Bangkok and our
families holidayed together. It was wonderful
to reconnect and when the children saw each other the next morning, it was as
if they had never been apart.
Liz
and Rupert’s bach is gorgeous; you wake up to an amazing view from any side of
the house. We spent the weekend at the
beach in Matheson Bay, checking out the Matakana farmers’ market, where we
sampled some whitebait fritters and feijoas (Anais is now addicted to
them); the Burtons adopted a little puppy now christened Milly.
It
was a rather short stay in Auckland and there were more people we wanted to see
(definitely next time Lisa!) but we loved every minute of it. Today we are in Papamoa, near the Bay of
Plenty.
Tea
wrote in her journal that the best part of her day was the Kelly Tarlton
Underwater world in Auckland and eating pizza on the beach. Then she added “I miss my friends”. Sweet and sour indeed.
