IT’S ‘FALL’ IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE!

MONDAY, MARCH 7 – ONEROA LIBRARY, WAIHEKE iSLAND – Well, it IS Autumn here—apparently the southern hemisphere looks at the dates a little differently than we do in the northern hemisphere and it’s officially Fall or Autumn.    I don’t think we will see any leaves change color but we have noticed that the daylight is ending earlier and earlier!  I did notice that is was cooler this morning but right now it is blue skies, a few white clouds and 80 degrees!!!

If you have ever heard a cicada you will appreciate this…they are noisy little buggers (although they don’t bite and they look like grasshoppers)—so the other day I got up and was sitting in the living room and a cicada had somehow gotten into the free standing metal fireplace and was making it’s noise and it was deafening—I thought, OMG what are we going to do to get rid of that awful noise?    But before long the cicada either found a way out or perished because the noise stopped.   If you have never heard cicadas—you are lucky!

That’s the day we decided to go vineyard hopping. 

We had a beautiful blue sky, white clouded day for it, too!  I snapped this flower picture by the bus stop while we waited: 

We get off the bus near 4 vineyards and are walking near a golf course and these flowers looked fake to us (but they are really real!): 

One of our first views of Saratoga Vineyard:  

 

We had a wine tasting along with a lovely fish taco lunch and bought a couple bottles of their wine (very nice!): 

They even let us try some of the grapes they just picked to make into wine..."wait Geoff, let me get a picture before we eat them all": 

Some photos taken at that great family run vineyard:  

Then on our walk up to Stonyridge Vineyard for more wine tasting, the clouds were spectacular:  

Geoff and his “lady”: 

Just enjoying a sip: 

A view from the deck where we sat:   

 

Then on to “Wild on Waiheke” Brewery and Topknot Vineyard for more wine/beer tasting and some great eats:   

The coolest thing was:

We met Mara, Maria and Nedi--3 young women from California who were in Christchurch when the earthquake happened—they were out at a wine tasting when it struck and they had to go to Hagley Park rather than return to The Grand Chancellor Hotel where they were staying—essentially losing all their belongings, including passports and cash.   A friend in Auckland has a cousin in Christchurch who he texted and had the cousin go pick them up and take care of them until they got a flight to Auckland.    They said the generosity and kindness of the New Zealanders was amazing and when I asked them if they needed anything, they assured me that they were fine and were not in need.   They were, in fact, out vineyard hopping for the day (like us) and they had befriended a couple, Jaime & Sandra (from Peru & Chile) and so we chatted with them as we all finished our wine and caught a bus back to Ostend (for us to do some shopping) and they all were going back on the ferry to Auckland.  They wanted a picture taken with us so Geoff obliged with my camera (from L to R, Sandra, Nedi, Jaime, me, Maria and Mara): 

Geoff and I truly hope that they enjoyed the rest of their visit in New Zealand (and maybe they will read my crazy blog and see their picture!)!!!  J 

I loved the artwork at Wild on Waiheke—made with local shells—one example: 

Saturday night found us going back to our favorite local pizzeria (Stefanos) and having our usual garlic prawn pizza with a few bottles of wine—followed by wonderful 60s and 70s music by Grant Bridges and the Red Fish Herring guitar/singers—it was all wonderful fun—including the dancing with Geoff!   I think I had too much wine because I sure was grateful that we only had to walk a block back to the cottage and collapse onto the bed!

We watched “The Girl Who Played with Fire” last night—it was great and follows the book well—looking forward to seeing the 3^rd movie of the trilogy when we can!

That’s it from Waiheke for this week—will see what next week brings:

Here is Geoff and I sitting on a bench by the local beach the other night—we were looking at the pretty lights across the water:  

Love, Sue & Geoff xo