(December 6, 2012 – March 6, 2013)
Our daily routine in Opua was pretty simple. In the tropics we were up at 6 AM because that’s when the sun came up; then we’d head out to the cockpit to drink our morning coffee. Here, we’d wake up at 8 because sunrise wasn’t until about 7:30 (with long days – the sun not setting until 9:30 or so). The combination of cool mornings and being in a marina kept us below decks, reading and working on the computer.
We’d have breakfast on the boat, then venture out to have a cup New Zealand coffee from the Marina Cafe or Opua Store. Rich spent a lot of time at Cater Marine and figuring out how best to approach some of our boat projects. I spent a lot of time doing domestic chores and figuring out how best to approach our sightseeing excursions.
We’d usually end up in one of the two nearby towns for lunch, often accompanied by a shopping errand (grocery store, hardware store, Target-like store, electronics store, ATM visit for previous stores, gas station, etc.) Then it was back to Opua for miscellaneous boat work, computer work, showers, dinner on the boat, and enjoying TV. We may be in New Zealand, but we’re keeping up with our favorite TV shows thanks to the internet.
We’d generally get some walking in during the day, at least to the General Store and out to the end the wharf. When we were feeling ambitious we’d walk in the hills. (For all the ice cream we were eating we should have been ambitious more often.)
Once a week or so, we’d take a few hours to do some sightseeing. Once a month or so we’d take a small road trip. And every Sunday we’d head to the farmer’s market in Kerikeri. In some ways life here wasn’t so different than our lives back in the US. -Cyndi
