Twitching Jax!

I've never been that interested in local birds, until i have now drastically changed my locality! the birds are way more unusual and exotic, and i cant help but get excited when i spot a new bird.

my lovely (ex) work colleagues bought me a fab set of binoculars,as my leaving present, so i decided to go out one afternoon and see what i could find. Matt and I, were forever spotting birds when out walking, and unable to get a good look at them never bringing the binoculars with us when needed!

So I spotted a good few common birds walking past peoples gardens, through a bit of forest and then along the beach, and consider the outing a great success!


here are some of the more unusual ones....

they are... the Fantail, Tui, Pied shag, Oystercatcher, Silver eye, NZ kingfisher, and NZ pigeon

2 fantastic things happened today.....

we saw 2 kingfishers by the sea. 2 REAL kingfishers..one a juvenile. i have never ever seen one, wild in the UK, and today we saw two..amazing! we couldnt get close enought to take a foto, as they were quite shy!

and the second fantastic thing is... that I (jacqui) got her NZ nurse registration approved, and recieved a natty little certificate to prove it!

... this means I can now apply for jobs in new zealand

Moving in

View of house front/side and back

At last, we could move in to our new house and stop living out of suitcases!

Matt was able to borrow a works van, to help us transport all our stuff and new furniture that we had acquired! the house looks really sparse as there is hardly anything in it!

Its tradition here to introduce yourselves to the neighbours. but they actaully beat us to it and popped round to say hi. they are an older couple from S.Africa and are living in the 5 bed. house next door. what kind and generous people they are!

having emigrated themselves they know the predicament of waiting for the container to arrive, and have basically lent us loads more stuff to tide us over. they had 3 households worth of furniture coming to one house, and therefore had a stash of excess stuff we were told to help ourselves from...

so after raiding their garage, we now also have a microwave, pillows, thick duvet, coffee table, heater, tool kit, bedside table and lamps... and best of all, a gorgoeus sofa with 'lazy-boy' action! we quickly ditched the acquired moth eaten and somewhat smelly sofa from Trade me, in favour of their lovely 2 seater!.. we kind of hope our container will be delayed as we love reclining back on their luxury couch!

also we can help ourselves to lemons from their tree and spinach or rhubarb from their garden!

we took them around, a nice bottle of wine the next day to say 'thanks', and 3 rounds of drinks and lots of chat later, we staggered back home!

Doncha just love neighbourly neighbours!

Decking area (back garden)

Coast 2 Coast Walk

On a whim we decided to try out the 16km (10mile) Coast to Coast walk in Auckland. This goes from the Tasman sea at Onehunga (West coast) to the South Pacific at Auckland Harbour (East coast).

Without a map we were relying on the route which according to our Auckland guide book was "well signposted". After a long detour we established that some of the signs were missing and we had to rely on Matt's trusty iPhone to get a online map.

The route takes you up some famous Auckland features such as One Tree Hill (minus the tree), Mt Eden, Auckland University and the Auckland Domain (which had lot's of wild parrots) ending up at the very swanky Auckland Marina.

We managed to get the bus home which saved our feet from the 10 mile return trip. Once back Matt realised that factor 6 suncream on his head was probably not strong enough for even the winter sun here! Time to crack open the factor duffle coat!

Links to photos here http://www.flickr.com/photos/50924114@N02/sets/72157624123857819/show/

House hunting in Cockle Bay

Cockle bay (high tide)

whilst we had use of the fleet car with unlimited petrol, from Matt's work, we really explored the area to help choose which town we wanted to live in. Unfortunately the queens birthday bank holiday meant that estate agents were shut for the whole long weekend, scuppering our plans to view some rentals.

its a real slow process going via estate agents, but eventually we did get to see some and boy! .. were they nasty!
smelly, scruffy, dirty, decor and carpets from the 60's. I (Jacqui ) had really had enough for one day, it was getting dark anyway!... when Matt got a phone call from a private landlord he had contacted, advertising on 'Trade me' (like Ebay!) and persuaded me to just view ONE more!
so off we trundled to Cockle bay, and wow what a little gem we had found. A modern, refurbished 3 bed, almost detached, with added bonus of underfloor heating. (most properties have little or no heating at all!) a small garden and decking area, (and the owners would maintain the lawns and garden!- BONUS) in a quiet cul-de-sac, 10 mins walk from the beach.

we said we would think about it and get back to them, as we had other properties to view, but i think we had both decided, that was the one for us.

as we didn't want to lose the house (you have to be quick to bag a good one around here!) we contacted the landlords, who are a young kiwi couple, the next day after viewing the area in daylight. We were relieved that they were just as eager to have a "professional couple" to rent their house.

they had planned on moving out in July, but after explaining that our apartment lease would be finishing next week, they said they would move out that weekend!
and even better, they would loan us some furniture and household items until our container arrived... how kind is that??

all we needed was a bed, and sofa... so back to 'trade me', where we bought a nice bed (which would be a guest bed when our bed from UK arrives) a vacuum cleaner and a sofa at very reasonable prices

fotos of Cockle bay and view from top of our road

back to reality

back to our apartment and a distinct change in weather. cloudy and rainy but strangely warm!

so we did our first supermarket shop. all the seasonal fresh fruits and veg were very cheap so we decided to make our own gourmet meal on the bank holiday Monday rather than go to a restaurant and pay a surcharge for the privilege! Fresh baked bread, pumkin soup and mussels were on our menu du jour. delicious!

3 days recuperation

after being picked up at the airport, the driver took us to our new temporary gaff and hire car. we dumped the cases and zoomed off to the beautiful Coromandel for 3 days holiday before real life begins.http://www.newzealand.com/travel/destinations/regions/coromandel-home/coromandel.cfmAfter a white knuckle ride in the dark, in a strange car, and suffering from sleep deprivation, over the mountainous tracks/roads with the sat nav conking out, we just about made it to out idyllic retreat. and it was soooo worth it. the B&B was lovely. our room opening out onto a wooden deck with wonderful sea views. we were very lucky with the weather having 3 days of sunshine and temps up to 19c! not bad for the middle of winter!

we enjoyed having an early morning cuppa outside on the deck, whilst being entertained by fantails and the resident dogs, before pigging out on a lovely homemade breakfast in the summer house. we took in a lot of the tourist stuff, (cathedral cove, hot water beach, a bush trail and the 309 road) as well as sorting out bank accounts and tax numbers (yawn!).

Piccies here http://www.flickr.com/photos/50924114@N02/sets/72157624229380618/show/

27 Hour Flight!!

The journey was long but at least its was only one way, and it was made fairly pleasant by the fab plane and entertainment on the Emirates A380 airbus. When we arrived at customs, we had a bit of stress due to Jax’s missing hiking boots. They wanted to inspect our boots after declaring them on the landing card. But in which of the 5 suitcases were the bloomin’ things?? We had to go through all of them on the floor before we found them but at least the bio-control lady...she say YES! ( she was impressed with jax’s obsessive toothbrush scrubbing with Jeyes!)

Matt’s special moment happened when asking one of the immigration guys if we should go in the NZ residents passport control queue.. he replied “Yeah...sweet az!”..such a cute drawl!