Melbourne to our NZ Home, yippee

We arrived late at night at Dehli Airport, with Dawn rather anxious to get to a country where she could enter a toilet without dread. The queue to enter Dehli airport, before we could even get near a check-in desk, was long and we were just sharpening our elbows for the battle to the door when Brian happened to ask an official looking man if this was the entrance for all flights. He said yes, but then took pity and said we could try a door further along. We left the queue and headed for a door guarded by two very armed soldiers, who were telling people who tried enter to go join the queue we had just left. Dawn's radient smile came to our recue, they looked at our papers, Dawn smiled, and we were let through. No further problems were encountered and we boarded the flight for Melbourne, via Singapore (for us the best airport in the world).

Now, what to say about Melbourne, hmmmm. It's pretty, with lots of parks and a few sky-scapers.

It's efficient with an excellent free tourist bus around the city. It has a nice river with lots of activity going on.

It has great and popular jogging tracks. It has quaint restaurants and bars along narrow alleys. It has lots of theaters and night-time activities, including the funky buildings in Federation Square.People are friendly. It has clean toilets. In fact we both agreed it would be a lovely place to live, but for a tourist for 6 days, there is something missing. So, in our view, Queensland and Sydney are better tourist places.

Mind you, by this time we were both really excited about taking the last leg of our trip to NZ and the house we would turn into our home, so maybe Melbourne was unlucky in that we were in a hurry for our stay there to end.

So with great anticipation we went to the airport and boarded the plane to Keri Keri airport, via Auckland. Couple of minor hiccups, the plane arrived late in Auckland and we had to run from the International Terminal to the domestic, with all our luggage (seemed about a mile) and the regular pick-up taxi that meets the planes that land at Keri Keri (a tiny airport) didn't show. (Seems there was a rugby game on......). Luckily a taxi meeting other arrivees going to the Paihia ferry terminal had room for two more passengers. With joy we boarded the ferry to Russell, only to find no taxi waiting for us on arrival. A very nice lady told us that if we were waiting for the taxi it was unlikely to show because there was a rugby game on. (Moral of the story, don't book to travel to Bay of Islands if there is rugby being played!). The kind lady then gave us a lift to our house, where I carried Dawn over the threshold into our dream (no photo as I had my hands full!).

It was late evening and we were tired, but it didn't stop us feeling overwhelmed that after the house planning and build problems, the weddings, travel to exotic places and many other challenges, we had reached the house that we would turn into our home over the next 6 months, or hopefully quicker.

We both slept very well and woke up to sunshine, the view of the bay and a house with a distinct chill to it....... Luckily the gas fire worked so it soon warmed up. It's difficult to explain how we felt, besides happy, but one word that springs to mind is contentment. It seemed everything we had done together over the previous years had been leading us here.

Enough soppy talk, we were soon brought back to earth when we went on the deck and saw the weeds that had invaded the "back forty" (Dawn's language; for those of you not American it means garden) and which seemed to have no problem growing in the clay, all but smothering the proper plants that we'd spent many hours putting into the ground 7 months before. So we did what all cowards do, went back in, pulled the blinds and went back to bed to tackle the jet lag.

After a few days of weed spraying/pulling the garden looked bare, but at least we could see the plants we lovingly pick-axed holes for. The hot-tub has also been much used.

Lots of other things have kept us busy in the 6 weeks we've been here and as you can see our home is looking good. But we'll write about that soon, with more photos.

Finally, word of warning to all those who said they would like to visit us here in the Bay of Islands. We've already had two happy visitors and bookings for dates next year are happening as I write, so if you're serious about coming get in touch!!!!

A very merry Christmas to you all.

Brian and Dawn (with a Pohutukawa tree - New Zealand Christmas Tree - behind us)