Sitting in the Gouk's living/dining room, watching the orange pilot boat returning to the jetty - something must be arriving. And then round the corner of the container garage on the building plot next door peeks a mothership - one of those floating blocks of flats that troll around the seas, dispensing deck quoits and drinks, in this case the Sea Princess. It's not until we see the entire boat slipping sideways into its berth, under tug control that the full impression of size and mass is realised - how much energy is there in that slowly moving leviathan? No different in principle from a cast-iron narrowboat though!
Spent the rest of the morning hanging out with the rels - ended up walking with Neville to get something for lunch, bread, smoked chicken, and having a coffee in a conveniently situated cafe across the road from the shops. We talked about families and the times we'd met before, worries about kids, all those sorts of things. Strolled back to the house, stopping off in the bakery for bread and pink-iced chelsea buns, and the same butcher as yesterday for some smoked chicken. I like smoked chicken I realise.
Jen, Gaye and Angela got back about the same time we did, having been to Sunny's Variety store to get some scrapbooking materials, and a new pair of flip-flops for Jen. She was pretty pleased with all the stuff.
After lunch the guys put everything away and shut the house up - very good of them to share it with us! We drove up to the redoubt in Tauranga, where they left us to look around. We were going to look around there but it started to rain, so we set off towards Matamata, me hoping to be able to follow Nev's explicit directions - go up Cameron Road, turn towards Hamilton, when the road splits go towards Matamata, turn right at the BP station and it's 10km on the right. Easy to say…
We stop on the way for a nap, since lunch was fairly large - Mclaren Falls Park, where lots of youths are sunning themselves in self-display on the rocks, and some are even diving off the bridge into the gorge. Since the water is only released from the dam above 26 days a year, I hope they don't turn it off unexpectedly! A stray hen appears amongst the ducks and eyes us hopefully...
After that, it turns out that's pretty much it, and apart from me driving past the turn and having to turn around, we get there no problem. Two houses, and the old farmhouse is over to the left. There's a low-hanging magnolia tree, which shortly becomes slightly less low-hanging as some of the branches are caught in the awning box on the roof. Maybe I should have tested it afterwards.
The sky over the Kaimai-Mamaku hills is dark, and the waterfall visible from the farm is not a continuous stream - the wind is actually blowing the water so much it seems to fragment as it venturis up the cleft. The forecast is rain tomorrow, so Neville takes us to see the bran-new cow milking shed (very proud of this!), the various herds - milking, pregnant, young bulls - and right down to the creek off the cliff with the redwoods his father planted so long ago standing straight and tall from the foot past the pasture we're standing on. I'm very moved by the whole experience - my mum would have loved to have seen this, and I'm glad that I'm seeing it, hopefully somewhere she's getting something out of this too!
Dinner is roast pork with homegrown veggies - this IS a farm! Sonia has gone home to her husband rather than stay for supper - Jen has already bonded with all the ladies via scrapbooking, cross-stitch and other crafting activity. So it's just Nev, Gaye, Angela and us - the meal is pretty leisurely, with all of us swapping stories, sparked by various items. Neville produces one of those old 60's style multiple postcard folded letter strips, sent by Mum on 10/7/76, written on the beach at Lyme Regis and wishing Angela (1!) all the best. Penny is still at Oxford, and I've just started at Minns Music, hopefully for something better to come along… it's very sweet and pure Mum! Then Angela digs out the girls' hand-written scrapbooks from their S Island family tour in '93 - great stuff, lots of wonderful items and souvenirs - Gaye had them do it before dinner every night, and we talk of places to go in the weeks to come.
And so to bed. G'night - hot and muggy… rain coming!
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