Dave and I woke up around 6:30am, made coffee and started packing up. We left the campsite around 8am and began driving up the west coast toward Dave’s family’s house. After driving for a half hour or so, we arrived at ___________________ and took a ferry to __________________. I have never been in a car, driven onto a ferry to get where you are going. It was another new, enjoyable experience. At one point the ferry started going backwards and we were quite confused. The Captain approached us and told us there was an emergency vehicle we were going back to pick up, and asks Dave to move the van behind the vehicle next to us. Understandable, clearly. As Dave is parking the van, I am talking with the Captain briefly and said, “We all were confused and wondering , are we going backwards?!” The Captain had a thick Kiwi accent and although I wasn’t very sure of what he said, I laughed anyhow when I heard, “Well, the wind isn’t blowin that hard dear.” A few moments later, we start going forward again and the Captain tells us this time that it had been canceled. Okay. Fair enough.
Once the ferry landed across the bay, we started our drive through the beautiful west side of the island full of tons of native flora and fauna. Dave claimed this to be his favorite part of the drive.
Around 11am we arrived in Kaitaia and did some grocery shopping while we had the car; 3 cases of beer and some snacks to get us through the week. Around 12pm we arrived at Dave’s family’s land at Wanui Orchard and unloaded the car. We then brought the van up to the house and were greeted by Dave’s mom, Kathy and his sister, Hannah. It was nice to see them and they were very sweet. It was so incredibly hot though, we were all sweating.
We came back down to the caravan and started putting everything away. I then realized I had way too much stuff for the caravan and left some nice dresses and cooler weather clothing in the suitcase to keep up at the house.
As soon as that was set, we went straight into the garden. Dave had worked his butt off tilling the land by hand and digging trenches/ building beds. Dave had been working 50 hours a week, and building a ukelele as well as tending the garden and after being away for 3 days, there was a lot of straightening to do. The zucchinis had powdery mildew, as did the butternut squashes and the French pumpkins. Also, the tomatoes had grown so many branches, you could not see the ground beneath them and were covered in shield bugs. We started pruning and soon after we had begun working Bryan, (Dave’s brother) and his girlfriend Megan stopped by the garden and greeted me with hugs and kisses, very sweet. Bryan commented on the nice butternut squashes that Dave was growing in the garden. It was incredibly hot. Nearing 80 degrees with almost 100% humidity. Blech!
Since the whole family was here, we all made a dish to share for dinner. Dave and I made a raw kale and veggie salad, Megan used some of the fish Bryan had caught and smoked to make a creamed smoked fish and Dave’s dad, Matt made some yummy burgers. Delish!
After dinner, Matt made a fire, which we sat around for a while before going to bed. Slept in the house that night which was nice to have a big bed to sleep in, after sleeping on a twin mattress with Dave for 2 days. Went to bed around 10:30pm. Nice, full day.
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