Matarangi Beach Times

Just before everything happened with my brother, Rich and I were lucky enough to spend a few days in Matarangi in the Coromandel for our friend Conor and Sue's wedding.

Sue, being pretty much the most organised person I have ever known arranged for a "Wellington Bach" (bach being North Island NZ speak for holiday home) for us Wellington folk to stay in - plus our friends Alaina and Boggy from Melbourne. It was a pretty fancy bach - pretty fancy indeed.

Did I mention the bach was right on the beach? Also did I mention we went to the beach for lots of walks? Because we did and it was awesome.

Also we had wonderful sunsets like this one.

Unfortunately, there was hurricane forecast for the day of Sue and Conors wedding and they day before the wedding, the skies began to get a little darker.

Then the day of the wedding the hurricane really set in (Hurricane Lusi for those who want to know its name) and our friends couldn't have their wedding one the beach as planned. The wedding was still beautiful, just held at the local golf club instead.

After the storm, we headed down to check out the beach. It had taken a bit of a hammering from the cyclone.

However, the day after the wedding the storm was all gone and the beach was beautiful again - Murphy's Law right?

So that was our mini break, it was pretty much the best. I'm so looking forward to us all getting together again for New Years. In the meantime, I'm going to listen to the rain outside and try and remember what sunshine looks like! Have a wonderful week xoxo

Eleven Years of awesome!

This weekend we celebrated our eleven year anniversary - wow, that's a whole lot of time. In the past we have taken a holiday for our anniversary, but this year it didn't work out so we decided to spend a day together hanging out doing fun things like going for a beach walk in Petone.

In case all you folks in the northern hemisphere were wondering - yes it is now winter and yes it is cold!

We took a walk out along the pier in Petone, which I assume is called Petone Pier?

Some naughty seagulls were trying to steal the bait from the people that were going fishing - however, the wind was so strong they were getting blown backwards!

We like this fish head thing - not sure what its actual purpose was though.

Rich waiting for me to buy some cups of teas from a cart - did I mention it was cold now?

After our walk we went for a walk around Petone and eventually had lunch at a curry place. But I thought this street art was pretty cool - we spotted the storm trooper first and then on the other side of the road we spotted...

Hans Solo!

Finally this weekend we re looking after this pretty lady - my friends cat Luca! Rich and I are actually BOTH allergic to cats but in Luca's place we can make an exception (even if it results in sneezing) as she is so adorable!

Hope you all had a super weekend :D

Opunake Beach!

One of the nearest towns to my parents house in Opunake - one evening whilst at Mum and Dad's we all went into town for a spot of dinner at the local pub.

We ended up going to Opunake a bit later in the day so most of the shops in town were closed - but my Mum did stumble across this op shop and my mum asked the lady if she would mind staying open a while later so we could have a look around.

The building that the op shop is located in could do with a little bit of TLC, but I guess the rent must be pretty low for the store owner.

There were a lot of treasures inside for very good prices - much cheaper that stores here in Wellington. I ended up buying a wee make-up compact and a navy blue winter dress (perfect with orange tights!) here's a few photos I took inside the store. I get the feeling that my mum will be coming down to the shop quite a bit.

After a huge pub dinner we headed down to Opunake Beach for a walk - Opunake Beach is pretty well known as a surf beach and its pretty popular in summer. When we arrived there there were loads of people in the camp ground and although it was nearly 7pm the lifeguards were still on duty. Here's a few photos that we took when we went for our beach walk.

A few days later when our friends Nilanka and Paul picked us up from Mum and Dad's and on the way to the beach house we were staying at we stopped off at a lookout above Opunake Beach.