Greetings from our old home of Auckland, NZ. It's been nice to be back in our old stomping grounds as we wrap up our extended visit to NZ (we're flying back to LA on March 30th). We've been catching up with old friends and colleagues and enjoying some good weather for a change as summer has finally arrived in NZ! We're also taking care of some things like selling our car and looking into shipping our belongings over here in a few months.
The amazing Clareville Bakery a quick 20 minutes up the road from our future home.
Before leaving the Wairarapa a couple weeks ago, we decided to have one more go of tramping the Holdsworth Jumbo Circuit in the Tararuas which we had tried in January only to get stuck at Powell Hut for two days while miserable weather blew through (horizontal rain and no visibility). This time we decided to do the trip in the other direction so we headed up the river valley before climbing up to Jumbo Hut which is just above treeline. We had run into a fellow hiker who had come across the ridgeline earlier in the day and he said it was really treacherous with extremely limited visibility. That's more or less what we discovered when we ascended to Jumbo Hut so we decided to call it a day and spend the night. Once again, we had the hut all to ourselves (surprise, surprise) which allowed us to spread out and make ourselves at home. Unfortunately, the wood was all wet so it wasn't possible to have a fire but the hut had gas cookers so we made plenty of hot beverages. The weather was better than our January visit (see photo below of the cables that hold down Jumbo Hut and keep it from blowing away!) but it still thwarted our ability to complete the leg across the Holdsworth ridgeline between Jumbo and Powell huts. We'll have to return again when we're back next time and hopefully the third time's a charm!
The trail right behind our house makes for some good hill running.
Cables holding Jumbo Hut down - the previous hut was blown off its foundation due to high winds.
For our first few days back in Auckland, we stayed with friends in Bethells Beach/Te Henga which is a beautiful rugged beach community in West Auckland. They were hit really badly by Cyclone Gabrielle last month and are still recovering from numerous slips, road closures and extensive flooding. It was heartbreaking to see all of the damage and all of the tracks are closed as well so I was relegated to either running on the beach or on the road. The community seems quite resilient though with lots of diggers and bulldozers moving dirt so they're definitely on the road to recovery.
We hadn't done a housesit in a month and a half so were happy to line up a few housesits for our final couple weeks in Auckland. It started with a housesit in Ellerslie where we were looking after a super friendly cat named Eric while the owner was on the South Island tramping the Kepler Track. Then we moved over to Onehunga for a ten day housesit watching two feral cats (Floyd and Lily) and some gold fish. It's a pretty easy housesit as the cats come and go as they please and only seem to ever show up for meals and the fish only need to be fed once a week. Onehunga is one of the more industrial areas of the city so lots of trucks, containers and construction happening all over the show. In the middle of the Onehunga housesit, we were booked for another housesit in Warkworth which is about an hour north of Auckland. We decided that I would cover the Warkworth housesit while Ginny stayed with the feral cats. I'm afraid she got the short end of the stick as the Warkworth house had a swimming pool and was near some beautiful beaches. The only downside was that the dogs (Echo and Luna) had a lot of energy (puppies) so required two good walks each day. I didn't mind getting outside for some extra exercise though!
Eric (non-feral)
We’re in the final stretch and will try to squeeze in a few more get togethers before flying out. Looking forward to being back in the U.S. and Mexico for a bit before we head back here more permanently. See you all soon!
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