Otaki Medical Centre -Weekend on Call

This weekend Roger has been on call for the medical centre, so Lindsay has gone off to Wellington to meet Avreal and Wilma for a girlie wekend.

Apart from a Saturday morning Clinic all fairly quiet on call so I have managed to do a cycle tour of Otaki Beach and the river estuary.

Waikanae Beach

This weekend we havent travelled very far. It was quite wet on saturday, however we met one of the other doctors at Otaki Medical Centre, Bert and his wife for a meal out at The Red House Cafe in Te Horo and were then invited back to their house to meet the rest of the family and watch the rugby international. As South Africans they were mostly on England's side against The All Blacks. Not the right result but a very enjoyable evening none the less.

Today is a lovely mild sunny winter's day. Lindsay has gone to do some Samaritans training so I cycled to the local swimming pool and later took a walk on the Beach.

Only three more weeks in Waikanae until we move down to the South Island!

Napier Cathedrel

Today before we left Napier we visited the cathedrel. The old cathedrel was lost in the earthquake and the new one is a fairly modern design. There is a link with Coventry as both original cathedrels were destroyed within a decade of each other. As a guesture of solidarity Coventry sent a simple cross made out of medieval nails from the original Coventry cathedral.

We were made very welcome at the cathedrel and even celebrated communion in a small chapel.

Napier

This week is a long weekend for the Queens birthday, so we have come to Napier, "The Art Deco Capital" and the centre of Hawkes Bay, a large wine production area. Yesterday we took a bike ride out fron the centre of Napier to Craggy Range Vineyards to have lunch, a 63 Km round trip! It rained the whole way there so we arrived in the quite smart Terroir Restaurant dripping muddy sweaty and probaby quite smelly. However the staff we fantastic a helped us dry out and warm up beside a large open log fire, whilst keeping the wine glasses filled up. We arrived back at the hotel at about 5pm tired but satisfied we had achieved the round trip in some adverse weather conditions.

Today holiday Monday we took a guided Art Deco bus tour of Napier. We were the only two on the tour so had personal service from the guide. We were shown examples of the pre 1932 earthquake architecture and the Art Deco style revival of the city post quake.

Finding an open restaurant tonight might be a challange as most seem shut for the holiday.

Waikanae Beach and Nga Manu Nature Reserve

A rathur wet and windy weekend at Waikanae didnt stop us getting out and about. On saturday morning we had a blow along the beach and watched the kite surfers risking their lives in the pretty rough seas. I the afternoon we had our first visitors! Graema and Wilma came down from Taranaki to see us. 

Sunday was still quite blustery with occasional heavy showers, but we managed to dodge them mostly and did a bike ride and went to a local nature reserve.

The bird managed not to poop; not so sure about Lindsay!

The Wairarapa and Palliser Bay

It has been a lovely autumn weekend with bright sunny days and cold frosty nights. On Saturday we travelled over to the south east side of the North Island to the Wairarapa valley region. A lovely flat wine growing region with hills surrounding in the distance. In the late afternoon we attended a concert in Masterton; a performance of The Armed Man written by Karl Jenkins and performed by local amateurs. A wonderfully evocative and emotional piece performed really well. 

Overnight we stayed in Martinborough at a small B&B called The Martinborough Connection. We were made very welcome and well fed for breakfast.

On Sunday we travelled down to the far south to Palliser Bay with views along the bay and the South Island in the distant horizon. A short walk along a river bed took us to the Putangirua Pinnacles.
Difficult walking along rocky ground, we only got slightly wet!

We had lunch at the Lake Ferry Hotel which boasts the best fish and chips in the world. They certainly were very tasty.

Back home now in Waikanae ready for another weeks work!?

A weekend on call!

We havent been far from home base this weekend as Roger has been on call. Not too busy but needed to be able to go into clinic if necessary.

However we did manage to get out and enjoy the unseasonaly warm autumn weather with a long bike ride on Saturday and a power walk on the beach on Sunday.