Riparian Entertainment

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Nicky has been on holiday again this week, but we haven't been away. The weather forecast for the week was not brilliant, but turned out to be wrong most of the time, and we have had some lovely weather; just a few rainy bits. This has enabled Nicky to do lots of pottering round the house and sewing, and I have done a few Mac jobs here and there.


On Tuesday Nicky went over to Glendowie and had lunch with Ruth. At some point during the week, Nicky was with me at the bakers and we bought our first batch of hot cross buns for the year, and have been thoroughly enjoying them.


On Friday we went to the airport to collect Mike Wall, a friend from the UK who is visiting NZ and staying with us for awhile. On the way to the airport we called in on Claire for a quick tour of the NZ Archives where she is doing her internship. It was very interesting to see the place and the material that she is working with. We then popped over to one of the Icebreaker stores so that I could spend my Christmas voucher, and I got two very nice shirts (because I couldn't decide which one I liked the best and they were both very heavily discounted). Then we picked up Mike, in between very heavy showers.


Claire and Ryan came over for dinner to welcome Mike, before falling asleep on the sofa. We sent them home with left over Derby Pie.


Saturday was a highlight of the week for us. We took the Riverhead Ferry to Riverhead (surprisingly enough) and had a meal at the Riverhead Tavern, the second oldest licensed premises in NZ. I had discovered the ferry and tavern in the newspaper some time ago, and put it on our list of things to this week while Nicky was on holiday. I though a boat ride, lunch and then another boat ride would be good. We had hoped to go on Tuesday and take Jancis with us as it was her birthday, but she was still away doing other fun things. When I rang to arrange the trip I discovered that the ferry only runs on particular days because of the tides. This week it was Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was the only convenient day, so after communications with Mike and Jancis I booked the four of us on the ferry.


The ferry didn't depart from the Maritime Museum until 2.45pm, so we drove into town late morning and walked down the the waterfront and along to the Winyard Quarter. This are was all redeveloped prior to the Rugby World Cup, and it the first time that we have been down when is wasn't heaving with people due to an event taking place. It was really good to see it and have a gentle wander round, eat our picnic lunch, and enjoy the hot sunshine.


We caught the ferry at the allotted place and time and were quietly informed that there would be a hen party on board. The ferry wasn't big (maximum of 55 people), so we couldn't avoid them, but they could have been a lot worse. They were quite noisy but well behaved, and not longer after we had been seated at the Tavern, a member of staff asked if we would like to move to a quieter table, and even though it was inside we were very pleased to do so. We all had very tasty fish and chips, a good bottle of wine, and a couple of desserts, before our 6.15pm departure back to Auckland harbour. The one and half hour ferry trip was was very enjoyable in both directions, the return having quite different light with it being early evening. We passed under the Upper Harbour Bridge, a piece of roadway which Claire is very familiar with as it was on her route to and from University for the last three years (picture below).








Today Nicky has been in prison, Mike has been getting acclimatised and working off his jet lag, and I have been enjoying the sun.


That's all for now,

Take care, Rick

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