Time marches on and we know from past experience that the last three weeks are a whirlwind, so we headed up north to see the twins (and their parents – and the dog…) at the end of April. The ANZAC weekend meant it was a public holiday on the Monday and the weather forecast was a bit grim, so we headed up with Paula’s daughter Julie on the Sunday.
Paihia in the Bay of Islands, is a popular cruise port – though they use tenders – and Paula’s son and his wife have run a very successful Jet Ski hire business from the main pier, but had closed down for the winter.
We stayed at the Copthorne Hotel on the edge of the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi, where they have some excellent pools, including this large spa pool built into the rocks. Very welcome when it gets a bit cooler.
However, we ate at the Returned Services Club in Paihia (twice) and had some great food. Regular readers of my blogs will know that food is one of my passions so Paula’s ‘fish plate’ was well worth a picture. Delicious – as were both my meals.
A stormy Monday morning had us scuttling up to nearby Kerikeri, but there wasn’t much open, though we did have an excellent breakfast at the Kerikeri bakery, before calling on friends.
On the way home, we stopped once again at a small café about 20kms north of Whangarei called Li Li’s where I had a great eggs Benedict and once again, well worth a picture.
Back at home, the assembling (not the packing!) for the trip has started in earnest and the first shop was several packs of Robert Timms coffee bags. Although we do have plenty of Princess coffee cards, keeping a couple of coffee bags handy for the breakfast buffet, beats their free coffee any day of the week. The next purchase was a small pile of Whittaker’s hazel nut chocolate bars for the UK.
For those fairly new to cruise packing, the modern day electronics now require various chargers, spare batteries, cables, spare data cards etc., (which now also adds weight and volume), let alone the devices themselves, so if flying these ‘new’ essentials now have to be assembled and organised well before the clothes! How times have changed. It used to be a small 35mm camera and a couple of rolls of film. With phones, tablets or lap tops, MP3 players, Kindles, digital cameras – large and small, sometimes with zoom lenses, it pays to be organised and thorough, particularly now that even USB cables come in two sizes.
The calendar is filling fast now, with various appointments, meetings and dinners, to cram in, not to mention the usual household and domestic tasks.
We are really looking forward to the first cruise on the Sea Princess. The cruise around Great Britain on the modern and larger Royal Princess will be very interesting. We have said before that the Sea Princess, although getting on a bit, is a bit like an old pair of slippers and we expect it to be similar to the Dawn Princess we know so well. The 2013 Royal Princess should be a contrast but it means our time in the UK this time is down to just two weeks.
Maybe one more blog before we cruise out of Sydney?
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