My bus from Paihia arrived at Albany on Saturday 21 December just after 5pm. I was going to my 8th and final North island housesit in Campbell’s Bay, on the North shore of Auckland, and was met by the houseowners’ 21 year old daughter, Claire. She arrived in a 4×4 and drove me to the house. We chatted all the way, with me mainly asking questions about Louis, the dog I was to be looking after.
The houseowners, Stuart and Sally, had gone away 3-4 weeks beforehand, initially to Hong Kong for a 50th birthday celebration then on to the Philippines. At some stage their 16 year old daughter, Adele, joined them and they were meeting up with family in Brisbane for Christmas on 22 December.
At the house I met Liam, their 23 year old son who was 6’4” and rather good looking. Claire told me that they didn’t get along very well, he’d been living in Perth for some time and fairly recently come to join the family. I don’t know whether any of the children were born in NZ but their parents are Australian, Sally from Sydney and Stuart from Melbourne.
As soon as I’d dropped off my bags in my room Claire suggested I go with her to take Louis on one of his regular walks along the beach, not far from the house. Louis had been described on the Trusted Housesitters’ website as a Labrador/Retriever cross. As soon as I looked at him he had an obvious Staffie face, which Claire agreed plus she said there was a bit of greyhound in him too! In the summer dogs are only allowed on the beach between 5pm and 10am. We walked along the waters edge, with Louis on the lead but walking through the water, then along a rock platform which led to another beach. On the platform Louis was taken off his lead and kept popping into the water. He has a fixation with stones and has to be stopped immediately. Along the way, Claire told me that the house was rented and her father’s company had paid the rent for 4 years but this year they were paying it themselves. Unfortunately they’ve fallen out with their Chinese landlords who don’t maintain the property and won’t repair anything so the family will be moving to another rental in 3 weeks. We went back along the platform to the original beach and Claire threw a stick into the sea for Louis which he loved. I’d taken the lead a few times and discovered how strong he is.
Back at the house Claire showed me how to use the washing machine, dishwasher etc then I went with Liam to get some fish and chips for dinner. Claire was working from 0630 the next day for a few hours at their equivalent of Homebase and I took Louis to Centennial Park, which wasn’t far away, for over an hour’s walk. When I got back, Claire had returned from work and at 1pm she and Liam left for the airport to get their flight to Brisbane to meet their parents and sister.
I’d been left a nice little Honda hybrid car to use so popped to Countdown supermarket in it for groceries and later took Louis to the beach for a repeat of the walk I’d done with Claire.
I quickly fell into a daily routine of taking Louis out for at least an hour’s walk to Centennial Park and an hour after 6pm for a beach walk. I was able to let him off the lead in the park and for most of the time at the beach. Claire had told me that he’d been attacked by a bigger dog so was wary of those but was ok with smaller dogs. I found him to be very obedient (except sometimes when he got his stone obsession on the beach) and was very sociable with other dogs except just once when there was a tussle with a larger dog.
I enjoyed both the walks. Centennial Park had a variety of pathways with names: Magnolia Walk, Baylis Track, Mamaku Track, Kohekohe Track and Walking Bus Track, winding through the native forest. I tried to vary the route each day but always ending along the Aberdeen track which led to the Avenue of Remembrance. There were always a few other dog walkers and joggers but Louis behaved impeccably and obviously enjoyed it there. There were also a couple of WW2 pill boxes hidden in the undergrowth. These are concrete dug-in guard posts, equipped with loopholes through which weapons could be fired. It seemed quite an odd place to have them.
My Christmas Day was just like the other days at the housesit except that I did make an effort to cook a meal rather than have salad, plus I ate the Christmas pudding I’d bought at the market in Kerikeri, had a bottle of Prosecco and Turkish Delight. I treated Louis to a packet of duck treats for a present!
I had discovered, soon after Claire and Liam left, that there was mouldy food in one of the two fridges which was also extremely dirty, so I felt I just had to empty it all, throw out the mouldy food and clean it. Then I discovered an ant trail which led to the pantry where some sugar had been spilt, again I cleared it all out and cleaned the dirty shelves.
Claire’s boyfriend, Marlon, who lives with them had been away in Perth where he has family and arrived back at 1am on Friday 27 December. I hardly saw him as he was either out or stayed in his room, I never saw him eat or drink. The family arrived back at 1am on Sunday 29 December and were all still in bed (apart from Claire who’d gone to work for a 6.30am start again) when I got up. I decided to take Louis out for a final walk in the Park and when I got back Stuart and Sally were up. As I hadn’t met them we had a chat over a cuppa and found them to be lovely people. They told me there was no rush for me to leave but I felt I should and Sally kindly drove me to my Airbnb in Devonport and told me that should I ever need a bed if I’m in the area to get in touch.
Louis in Centennial Park 
WW2 pillbox 
Avenue of Remembrance 
Louis on the beach 
Saying goodbye to Louis
I’d booked the Airbnb for my final 4 nights in the North island and it turned out to be a small bedroom and bathroom fitted out in the back of the owners’ garage (described as ‘behind’ the garage not in it!). It was very hot in there, although there was a window and fan but it was so noisy and quite ineffective so I hardly used it. A kettle and toaster were provided plus a mini grill/oven but I couldn’t really work out what I’d use that for – a microwave would have been more useful. Anyway….I briefly met Amy, my host, and went into town for a wander. I’d been in Devonport for a day a few months previously so was familiar with the little town. I went to the cinema to see ‘The Good Liar’ starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellan which was enjoyable.
On Monday (30 December) I’d decided to go back to the Auckland Museum as had seen there was an Antarctica Virtual Reality event and booked a 1pm session. The metro line to the stop near the museum wasn’t functioning so I took a bus which got filled by a group of older teenagers who were making more noise than 5 year olds would have. As we all got off I mentioned this to one of the two adults accompanying them. Oh, I’m becoming an even grumpier old woman! At the museum I remarkably managed to not be in the same place as them.
There was a small exhibition called ‘Voyage to Aotearoa (NZ): Tupaia and the Endeavour’ which I started off with. Tupaia was a Tahitian high priest who met Cook on his first voyage on the Endeavour and joined him. This was of mutual benefit as Tupaia was a navigator and artist (albeit quite naive art) and played a significant role as translator and mediator between the tribes they came across, so was useful to Cook. Tupaia was also hoping that Cook would be able to mediate and help get him back to his homeland, the island of Ra’iatea, which had been invaded by Bora Bora warriors around 1763 forcing him to flee to Tahiti where he sought protection from the chief and his wife Purea. Ten watercolours painted by Tupaia survive and copies were exhibited. I knew about Tupaia having read about Cook’s first two voyages in books by Graeme Lay so it was particularly interesting.
I had another look at some of the Pacific Island exhibits with more interest than before, given that I’m planning to go to some of the islands, and had a general wander until it was time for the Antarctica VR event. We were taken into a room and had comfy chairs that revolved 360 degrees and were all given an eyepiece and headphones. The film was about 20 minutes long and was narrated by some of the researchers from the Research Station and, while there was a lovely film of the penguins, there wasn’t any other wildlife so I found it a bit disappointing, although appeared (as usual) to be in the minority. But, I just thought it could have been so much better as I won’t be travelling to Antarctica!
I walked from the museum into the centre of Auckland via Albert Park and checked out the Skytower. I watched a couple of people bungy jump from the top, lasting a few seconds and discovered that they’d paid $225 for the privilege! My last night on the Contiki tour (26 years ago) had been a meal in the restaurant at the top so I checked out the menu but decided I wouldn’t repeat that experience as it was rather expensive. Back in Devonport I went to a lovely cafe called Corelli’s for dinner which I decided I’d return to on my last night.
View of Skytower from Albert Park 
An interesting tree in Devonport
On Tuesday 31st (New Year’s Eve) I went to Waiheke Island. This is an island 21.5km from the Centre of Auckland and the second largest and most populated island in the Hauraki Gulf. A day before my tour had started, 26 years ago, I went to this island and walked all day getting quite sunburnt. I also remember it being pretty barren, but now it’s pretty exclusive with lots of wineries.
There are a few departures to the island from Devonport but far more leaving from Auckland Centre. The first from Devonport was at 0910 so I got there for that and joined a queue next to a lady called Renata, originally from Germany. She later told me she moved to Germany with her parents from Czechoslovakia when she was two as, for some reason, they had to leave. I got chatting to her. There was already a long queue and just before we were to get on the ferry (a catamaran) we were told it was full. This was disappointing as I knew the next one wasn’t until 1130, however we were told we could get the next ferry across to central Auckland and would be prioritised to get an earlier ferry from there to the island, so that was good. Renata told me she has a holiday home on the island and can go in the priority queue anyway so am not sure why she didn’t at Devonport.
So we got on a ferry that arrived at the island just before 11am. On the ferry Renata told me she was a retired GP, only having retired a year before aged 74. She looked remarkable and was clearly very fit. She told me she belonged to a walking group and each year goes abroad with them for long walking trips. She has one daughter and 3 grandchildren who live very near her in Devonport. She also lived, or still has a house there (not sure) in Whangarei which is further North and it turned out that the man opposite us (a Kiwi but having lived and worked in London for the past 8 years and returning for Christmas) had been seen by her when a little boy. She had known his parents well. Small world…although not quite so unusual in NZ as there are so many fewer people (does that even make sense?!) than in the UK.
When we arrived at Waiheke Island I said goodbye to Renata and started what I hoped would be a circular walk around part of the coast high up. I got as far as Cable Bay and beyond that the path was closed off due to storm damage. So I ended up walking on a road back to the Wharf. Before that I’d had a nice chat with a couple of female twin sisters, about my age, called Jenny and Ange. As usual I got talking about housesitting and they showed interest. We also talked about the idiosyncrasies of twins.
I then took a short bush path to the first little town called Oneroa and had a late lunch in a cafe called Wai Cafe overlooking Oneroa Beach. It was a rather hot day and, although I’d planned to do some more walking I suddenly felt quite weary so decided to go back to the Wharf and catch the 4pm ferry back to Devonport. I had absolutely no memory of Waiheke being as it is now so I was either somewhere else or it has completely changed.
I had planned to watch the fireworks from the centre of Auckland (I later learnt they came from the Skytower) from the shore in Devonport, but was in bed by 10pm, although reading. I did hear them though. Then I kicked myself on New Year’s Day for not having gone to see the fireworks, especially as I got a message from Margaret saying they’d seen Auckland’s “spectacular” fireworks on the BBC news. What an idiot I am, and unlikely to have another opportunity to see them. However, I’ve seen some pretty spectacular firework displays over the years so suspect I’ll “get over myself”!
I didn’t rush out on Wednesday (New Year’s Day) and had no special plan as to what to do, just generally meandered around Devonport, went to the cinema to see ‘Happy Ending’, a Danish film, which I enjoyed but made me feel quite low afterwards and lonely. After another meander, feeling lower and lonelier, I went back to Corelli’s for an early dinner, eating exactly the same as I had on Monday.
I checked out of the Airbnb on Thursday morning and got a lift to the ferry from Amy’s husband and took a Sky bus the other side to the airport, with 8 hours to spare before my 2040 flight to Melbourne.
NeverSayNeverNomad 