Auckland and surrounding area

 Once we got to Auckland, one of our stops was our old neighborhood and the school our daughters attended.

So, here we are at 43 Hart Road, Takapuna, Auckland 9, our house for a year. And, since this is the year of our 50th anniversary, why not? The tree on the right side of the picture, (my left) is a mandarin orange tree that was about 3' tall when we lived there, but is now about 15' tall.  The landlords told our girls they could eat as many of the oranges they wanted.  Little did they know that our girls would eat every orange on the tree.  The large window over Bonnie's right shoulder was the girls bedroom.

That white van is where we parked our car and where the girls made a pet out of a hedgehog.  Gone are the days of the dairy delivering milk and cream.  

As we continued on around the neighborhood, we visited the school where the girls attended. The very same school where Kristin starred on the girls netball team and Kerri's swimming skills landed her a place on the swim team.  When they attended this school, there were large recycling bins at the driveway entrance for people to drop their recyclables.  Now, the bins are gone and curbside recycling is in vogue.  When they attended school here, every school had its own swimming pool and swimming was part of the educational curriculum.  Now they are raising money to build a new pool.  

The girls, along with all other students, were allowed to walk up to the local dairy and get a meat pie for lunch, and it is still there.

Since New Zealand is made up of islands, the ministry of education decided many years ago that all children should be taught how to swim. So, as children get older they are taught many different skills for water recreation.  Here is a class learning 'Deep Water Rescue'.

Takapuna was a great living experience for us, but it is developed with a high concentration of high density housing.

After this nostalgia excursion, we drove on over to Devonport and viewed Auckland from Mt. Victoria. As usual, we took our lunch with us and had a picnic.

After staying a couple nights in Greenhithe, we drove on up to Paihia at the Bay of Islands.  The scenery was gorgeous.

We took the short ferry ride across the bay and drove to Russel which was the first New Zealand capitol, the first European settlement, and home to the first church in New Zealand which still holds regular worship services.

Sadly, the time has come to spend the last night before taking Shaaron and Karen to the airport. It was sad to see them leave. After taking them to the airport and picking up a smaller car, Denny and Lisa accompanied us to the place we will stay for the next month in Arkles Bay, north of Auckland. 

Now the time has come to take Denny and Lisa to the airport. Against our better judgement, we were sorry to see them leave.