A visit to North Head

Friday 10 May 2013 – Auckland.

On Monday night I picked up my oldest son Dom from the airport after another stormy day, luckily his flight was only delayed by a few minutes as i was kind of expecting a long wait. He has been on a training course with a fishing company based out of Nelson at the top of New Zealand’s south island and has some time off before he goes out to sea for two months on a fishing boat [edit] Just got the news he leaves next Tuesday, I am very excited for him! [/edit]. I had fingers crossed that I was going to be able to see him while I was here so was really pleased to be able to collect him from the airport and bring him back to my brother in laws house where I am staying.

Tuesday set a whole new standard for weather and was stunning – clear clear skies and nice and warm. Dom and I took a trip out to North Head and Devonport for a walk and (another) massive lunch, it was great to spend the day with him and great to have sun all day. While we were travelling to Devonport a helicopter crashed into the harbour – fortunately with no lives lost. We were wondering what all the activity was.

You have to say on a good day Auckland is a beautiful city!

All the war time tunnels were open on North Head, so we had a bit of an explore as well, it was the first time we had seen then all open.

Tuesday night was a family dinner with both boys – all up a very good day.

The rest of the week was busy with visiting people, eating and more eating and plenty of rain. I managed to knock a couple of runs off which countered some of the over eating. Luckily I was driving all week so did at least manage to not drink too many beers, though an evening at Galbraiths Ale house could easily have gotten messy if I was not behind the wheel, so many lovely beers to sample!

And that was sort of it for the week, and for the trip !

Many many thanks to my bro-in-law Allan for having me stay over while I have been here, to my sister and nephew and niece for letting me use the car for the whole time. It would have been impossible without it !

Aiden, Dom and mum, it was lovely to see you and I was tempted to not leave, I do miss you a lot and love you dearly and am looking forward to seeing you again. Fraser and the Davis’s – I will definitely come down to see you next time.

New Zealand and Auckland, you are a spectacularly lovely country and city, ditch the current heartless government (who just signed a bill allowing spying on its own people by the security services – bastards) and you will be a better place again.

See you in January 2014.

Next stop Sydney and then back to London, to El and the dreaded job hunt.