More from the surrounding Auckland area

 We have been exploring the area near Whangaparaoa (pronounced "fong-a-pa-ro-a") north of Auckland, which is also where we are living. We have been walking about 4 miles every morning on the wonderful beach of Orewa. That is where we saw the school classes out on the beach teaching "Deep Water Rescue" in my last post but here is that picture again.

Then when we were there yesterday, we saw the students in "Surfing" class.

The beach closest to us is Arkles Beach. The first picture is the south end of the beach and the second picture is looking to the south end from the north end.

This Arkles beach is fairly wide, so I am standing out at the water's edge taking a picture towards our house. It is the first house you see going up on the hill just above the white van and in the middle from left to right.

and here is our view looking down at the beach from our house. I am standing inside the living room.

When we lived here 30+ years ago, we were only a ten minute walk to our closest beach, Takapuna.  It was fun to go back and visit Takapuna Beach, where our enterprising girls "sold" tide pools to their cousin.

While we were at Takapuna, we re-visited our house on Hart Road.  It is the white house on the left half of the picture about in the middle from top to bottom.

This is the view we see when we turn into our driveway. That is our red car parked by our house.

Here are some things I find interesting:

    apparently, if you do not want to receive junk mail in your mailbox, you simply put out a sign

And isn't this interesting, our supermarkets in the USA give kids cookies, but New Zealand takes a healthier approach:

The wording is different, but the meaning is the same . . . RECEIVING (may need to zoom in)