It’s 9:30am Tuesday the 20th here in New Zealand as I write, though the server is likely to place a timestamp of Monday afternoon since it’s in New York EDT time. The 16 hour difference between NZ and NY has been the most confusing. We did manage to call home a few times and I […]

We drove north again yesterday in order to dine at the Sawmill Cafe in Leigh. Since we had driven past it the day before, and Leigh is on a decent sized road near the coast, no problem, right? Well, at the circle in Matakana we turned left instead of going round the circle to go […]

We are staying in a motel in Orewa, along the east coast about an hour north of Auckland. On Saturday Bill took the reigns, driving us north on Hwy 1. It’s the biggest highway here, but only two lanes, one for each direction, and occasionally a passing lane. The highway runs parallel to the ocean […]

Here’s a highlight of our trip – taking Leka the ferret to the Helensville vet!

We’ve been enjoying Auckland’s local alehouses – two that brew their own: Shakespeare Tavern and Galbraith’s Alehouse. Shakespeare was fun, very Irish Pub-like, including a chatty and friendly Irish bartender. Galbraith’s knocked our socks off. Really. We tried samples of Bob Hudson’s Bitter, Bellringers Bitter, Bitter and Twisted ESB, Full Nelson (brown ale) and Grafton […]