Day 2 (the unseen version)

Up at 6:30am, hoping for a 7:30am exit…but we found out it takes us 1½ hours to get ready in the morning. But after a good night’s sleep at Orewa Beach Top 10 Holiday Park we headed off and waved our goodbyes to mum.

We had our first proper hill to contend with just down the road from the park, but with a great walking path available there were no issues. The Waiwera hill followed closely and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been. The running down was all a bit of fun and we got to the bottom safely, and quickly. Although I thought we must have done something like 10km, I soon realised it was very wishful thinking and it was probably closer to 4-5km.

This first part of the journey was dominated by us singing tunes, such as ‘I will walk 500 miles’, ‘I walk by Faith’, ‘A whole new world’ and ‘Hakuna Matata’. And we have also been using the brilliant idea of Mr Russell Christie’s of making Top 5 lists of absolutely anything…from TV shows, movies, school sporting moments, holidays and people we’d invite for dinner. Facts were found out... whether they are interesting or not needs to be determined by someone else. We got to State Highway 1 and we decided to go over this rocky stony path next to the road which would, obviously, just run alongside it for quite some time and we’d be as safe as houses (that is a very strange saying)…but the path quickly ran out and our ‘short-cut’ became more of an adventure with us crawling on hands and knees.

As we continued on our way, the lovely Helen and Gordon Forsyth drove up for a morning outing and to see us. They pulled over up ahead and, despite it being just a little bit up the road, it took us a few minutes to reach them. We chatted and had a bit of a rest in their [stationary] car until mum caught up to say hello too. They then drove off and went to have lunch at a nearby café giving us time to continue on – so very thoughtful of them I thought.

So we trotted on…keeping hold of our hats as trucks roared past due to a few (I counted 3) incidents of Katie’s getting ripped off her head (not, her head getting ripped off, as I heard it). I needed to go to the toilet but decided to hold on…but then I couldn’t any longer…so we crossed the road and just did it in the grass. Katie had the video camera out and then a guy turned up I his van but I sorted myself out quick smart (and yes we did have toilet paper) and all was well. The final part of the journey took a lot longer than expected…or at least hoped…but we eventually got to our stop for the day at Mahurangi College and even walked a few hundred metres further until mum turned up to collect us. Just a few minutes down the road we got to our accommodation at Bridge House Lodge. We’ve done our hot and colds (and when Katie was timing me she forgot to say my time in the cold was up…after I screamed and she laughed I was able to switch it over), stretched and relaxed a bit. At 4pm Katie and I heading off (in the car) to a place called The Range where we played some baseball…Katie was good (like really cricket good) and I was bad (like bad).

This evening we headed over to the Mullhollands house at Snells Beach for dinner. Unfortunately, David had to work in Auckland so he was unable to be there…but Maureen’s (and our mum’s) Uncle David and Aunty Jean + their friend Bill.

The food was delicious (roast potatoes, rice, steak & kidney pie, lemon chicken, salad and coleslaw) and the conversation was grand. Much laughter was to be had and the evening rounded out with pure brilliance as Uncle David handed us a donation and when we looked up at him he was wearing these glasses which brought joy to our faces and tears to our eyes.

And then as we were heading back to our accommodation we got a txt from mum’s cousin (David and Jeans son), Jason. He had seen us in the Rodney paper and checked out our website so he came to where we were staying to say hello. We had a great catch up with him before heading off back to our room.

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