At Whangarei Marina, I like to feed the ducks off the back of the boat. In revenge, the seagulls gather and crap all over our solar panels.

After our trip to the South Island, we hauled Cream Puff at a local boatyard for routine maintenance. Well, it was a little bit more than routine stuff. We decided to have all the old antifoul paint removed and start over with a fresh coat. In addition, we had a long list of other items like repainting the water line, polishing the hull, and on and on and on. I won’t bore you with the details. Owning a boat is a constant drain on the bank account and just talking about it can be a little depressing.

When the boat is hauled for maintenance, we stay in a rented house. A lot of people we know will stay on the boat while it is out of the water and live in the boatyard. This is not for us. We have known too many people get hurt doing this. They have fallen off the boat landing on the pavement some 10 ft below. Or, they’ve fallen off the ladder used to get on and off the boat. A couple of friends were seriously injured and their boating adventures rapidly came to a screeching halt.

In addition to the lurking danger of falling off the boat, there is the pure inconvenience and yuk factor. A person must use the bathhouse provided by the yard. This is a worksite and as you can imagine the cleanliness of the facilities sits low on the priority list of separating boaters and their money. It’s not always the boatyard’s fault. Other boaters can be incredibly disgusting with their “person hygiene”. And, then there is the bucket.

Because the onboard toilet can’t be used due to the holding tank filling, a few boaters trying to avoid the climb off the boat and walk to the bathhouse will use a bucket aboard to relieve themselves. This is then disposed of later in the bathhouse where the target is not often hit throughout the disposal process. Are you starting to understand why we don’t want to live like this?

Last minute prep getting the Puffster ready on launch day

All set and awaiting the tide

Splash!

Cindy is the person who hunts for a house or apartment to rent. She will spend days scouring the various sites and often comes up with a great deal. This particular time was a little bit more complicated because we needed to pop down to Wellington for a couple of days and visit the French embassy to get long-stay visas for New Caledonia, our next stop. And, we weren’t exactly sure how long all the work on the list we gave to the boatyard would take to finish. They initially said 5 weeks. But, weather plays a big factor especially when painting outdoors.

Our first AirBnB was awesome. Located in Ruakākā and a short walk from the beach, the 3 bedroom house sits atop a hill yielding awesome views of Bream Bay and the South Pacific Ocean. The house was about a 30-minute drive from the boatyard and because it was located in a small town, the price was right. The main reason we rented it was because of the space.

Our home away from home. The price was good and so was the amount of floor space to spread out on. The sturdy table was a bonus.

A short walk from the rental house is Ruakaka Beach. Another fine NZ day.

We planned to remake our bimini top and needed a substantial amount of space to lay out fabric on the floor, cut and sew it using a heavy-duty machine. The machine requires a nice study table. The house was perfect for this. And, we discovered the house was really well appointed. The kitchen had everything we needed and there was even a portable record player.  I set it up on the porch while taking a day off. The owner has about twenty ’80’s era LPs and it was really fun to play DJ. Speaking of the owner, she was a super nice lady who invited us out to happy hour at a local watering hole. We enjoyed a great evening with her and met many of her friend from the area.

She worked with us even more when we told her we had no idea when our boat would be ready. We even coordinated a trip to Auckland for an Australian visa so her family could have their house back over a holiday weekend.

Another trip we made was to windy Wellington, located way down at the other end of the island. We figured it would take us a very full day to get there so we decided to split the drive over 2 days. This was to visit the French embassy to get a long-stay visa for New Caledonia. Cindy made the appointment and we arrived the night before. We spent just about the entire day at the Embassy since once there they asked for additional information and documents.

Thankfully, our hotel was just a short walk away and we were able to get what we needed printed and dropped off to them. Embassy people can be really finicky to deal with and we were only allowed to drop off stuff at certain times. We left them our passports in which they place the visas and a mailing envelope so they could send us the visa once they completed the process. This prevented us from needing to return and pick them up. This would all take 4 weeks.

On the way south, we stopped overnight at Taupō. Just south of the town is a river known as a world-class fly-fishing stop. And a wonderful tackle shop/cafe.

New Zealand loves to put up rules on just about anything. Fishing isn’t an exception.

The world-famous Tongariro River

The fall foliage is in full tilt as we continue our journey south.

The French Embassy is located inside a bank building on the 7th floor. Other than a small plaque at the street level, you’d never know it was there.

New Zealand’s government capital buildings

Downtown Wellington

Some sidewalk water art – soon to be ice art

After the dealings at the embassy, we needed to stop here.

After making our way back to Whangarei where the boat yard is located, we rented another house in an avocado orchard. There, we learned all about avocados thanks to the owner taking the time to explain how they obtained the orchard and learned to grow them. This house was really in the middle of nowhere but again, only about 30 minutes from the boat.

Away from any city lights, the stars on a clear night were spectacular. One particular night when returning from dinner out, we both stood in the garden amazed by the milky way. We typically don’t see this many stars unless we are out on the ocean on clear moonless nights.

Our cottage located in the heart of an avocado orchard.

While commuting to the boatyard, I noticed a museum with old cars and Googled it. It turned out to be a hidden gem. While it is mostly a Packard museum, the place was full of odd bits and pieces that made for a really fun Saturday afternoon.

Once a person pays the small entry fee, they are free to roam about the buildings unescorted. Like most places in New Zealand, there are few other people there.

I love this old Chevy truck. It still runs perfectly.

Rows and rows of Packards

Packard hood ornament

Anyone reading this remember rumble seats?

You just know I had to honk that horn

There’s even an area with old fire trucks and traction engines

Check out this old 1904 French moped by Peugeot. I wonder how it got here. That’s probably a story in itself.

We discover a room of old phones. The directory on the switchboard is for all of Auckland. It’s a bit fatter today.

Upstairs is a room full of antique motorcycles from all over the world

We discover some old cameras next to a typewriter display

Out back is a building with military vehicles and old farm equipment

Some nostalgia from Texas for Cindy

More and more Packards

Old kitchen paraphernalia just next to the gramophone collection

Speaking of museums, we also went to a clock museum. Since this is next to the marina, we’ve walked past this place tons of times but it never seemed to make it to the top of the list until now. It’s not a big place, but nonetheless, it is crammed full of timepieces. Some are incredibly interesting.

The collection started due to a chap called Archibald Clapham, or Archie. He moved to New Zealand in 1903 from Yorkshire (UK). He amassed a collection of clocks and opened his house to anyone who wanted to see them. Families would travel for miles to his property, swim in the river, have a picnic, and then be entertained by some of the funny clocks. He often needed to enroll other members of his family on weekends to help with the crowds of people.

Since the museum opened, a good portion of the clocks have been donated since Archies initial collection. We managed to hit the museum on a slow day and the lady running it took some time with us to point out a lot of the specialty clocks. This was great since we actually got to see the clocks chime or in the case of the dog clock, the tail wagging.

The Clock Museum.

In the courtyard is a large sundial clock

As you can see, it’s 12:30. The metal plates with Roman numerals have to all be moved for daylight savings time

The place is packed full of timepieces and clocks

I would have to have a magnifying glass to see the time on this ring clock

The wheels on this train clock moved as a part of the clock’s mechanism. The bell chimes the hour.

One of my favorites. the direction of the eyes tell the time

So, now here we sit with a newly painted bottom. The yard took even longer than we expected and we lived in real houses for 7 weeks. Finally, the boat launched and visas for New Caledonia arrived. We are ready to go. We begin to look at weather windows and plan our exit. New Zealand, being New Zealand, requires boaters to give 4 days notice to leave the country. This is so stupid. Can you imagine going to an airport only to tell them you wish to fly somewhere in four days.

Also, our timing to exit is based on the weather. In four days, the weather could completely change and we might have to abandon the trip. In every other country we’ve visited, exiting is easy. Well, except in French Polynesia who was changing computer systems at the time and had a massive SNAFU with us.

We have since discovered, that they might not ask for all four days of notice, it is dependent on how many boaters plan to leave – like we are supposed the know this. We will need to move the Puffster to an exit port for this.

We were not quite ready to go and watched a perfect weather window get away from us. Then, we started to get reports of New Caledonia. Riots broke out in the city where we planned to arrive. It was messy with a lot of looting and fires being set. The airport closed. All government buildings closed and troops were sent from France to restore law and order.

I guess in one aspect, I see us as lucky since if we’d taken the earlier window, we would have arrived mid-chaos. We thought, optimistically, that if we gave it a week the protests would subside and life would return to normal. It turns out it is rather difficult to get news about the events on the island. We watched in frustration another weather window pass while we wondered if the protests were going to calm down, or not.

Cindy had already made contact with an agent on the island who would help us with visas and arrival formalities. She emailed them for an opinion. The response wasn’t very positive and sadly we started to realize all the work Cindy had done and the trip to the French embassy in Wellington was for nothing. We decided not to go. Now what?

Good weather windows for what can be a seven-day trip, or longer are hard to find. We’ve now seen two pass us by while we awaited the New Caledonia situation. So, what are our plans now? We were all set for New Caledonia and the bottom fell out of that idea. We began to look at going to Australia or back to Fiji. We have to leave New Zealand soon since our visas will expire.

At one point, I said to Cindy, it’s a shame we just can’t stay in New Zealand and try again next fall (April’ish). But, New Zealand is a very myopic country when it comes to issuing a long-stay visa. I’m not getting on a rant here (I so easily could), but I have a UK passport. Queen Elizabeth II is on the NZ money. New Zealand is a Commonwealth realm and is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth with King Charles III as it’s monarch and ceremonial head of state. How does this benefit us? Not at all. Nada. Zip!

Our plan was to spend next cyclone season in Australia after New Caledonia. It’s a pretty short hop (about 7 days) from there to Brisbane where our insurance company deems as safe from cyclones. We could go earlier (we already have a long-stay visa for Australia, thanks to Cindy). Alternatively, we could head to Fiji for a little while. We both loved Fiji and the people. But, Fiji puts us a long way from Australia. Australia does not excite either one of us very much. We want to go swimming and snorkeling again in warm waters. We want coral reefs and sunny days. Northeastern Australia might allow some of this but we will always need to be aware of critters in the the water that either want to eat us or sting us.

Now, the weather has really turned to shit. There is system after system coming either across the Tasman Sea or down from the Coral Sea. Getting out of New Zealand is not happening any time soon. We started to wonder if this was a normal weather pattern and were all the windows gone now due to the cooler weather arriving. This prompted a conversation with Chris Parker.

Chris is a weather router for people like us. If you recall, we used his service to get safely from Fiji to New Zealand, what is known to be a difficult passage. Chris Parker says the weather is unusual. He gave us a rather lengthy explanation of the upper air systems and why things are currently as they are. His advice is to sit tight for a couple of weeks and we’ll have another look then.

So here we sit waiting about when a where we’ll be going. As I write this, the winds are just howling outside and the sky is overcast with rain imminent. Cream Puff is toasty warm inside with the heat running. I’m glad we’re not on the open ocean. We are watching the weather and have told Chris to advise us on any window that gets us out of here. So, stay tuned. We might surprise you.