Can it get even more beautiful than this, to be greeted by the rainbow and light rain? Washing off the dust and grime just before walking? Gosh, if I can just transport all the lovely people in my life here, this would be my desired place to live in.
Folks here are happy. Go to mass and thousands are praying fervently, singing their best voices. What a great place!
We went to mass at Hibiscus Coast Parish, officiated by Fr. Ranjit Ekka.
His homily:
“Most Holy Trinity
Doctrine of Trinity there’s one God, three persons, one God in perfect unity. It has 3 sides, one triangle, indivisible. Father is not son, Son is not Holy Spirit, they exist with each other. They share the same divine essence, in perfect love and unity.
Each person is fully God. It doesn’t divide God into three parts. Divine essence is in each person, we are all to live in unity and with one another. We are empowered to live in unity and love each other, through the Holy Spirit that guides us.
A five mile long beach trail, and over 40 feet wide, might be more, a span of four car widths – so clean, free of litter, no kelp, just half shells. Mom and kid on a stroller go by, as a marathon runner. I did one mile today, while hubby did three miles today.
We met up at our breakfast place, where they generously serve three egg omelette withspreafy bacon, good to feed two of us with cheese crusty bagel. Love the ambiance of this place, sitting in one of the sidewalk tables with a beachfront view.
Thank you for this beautiful beach, a referral from my niece @Suzette Delacruz Regalo, who is familiar with all the fun and serene places in NZ.
An English family moved from Northern England and love being Kiwis, as shared to me, and were selling mandarins in a bag for $4 NZ from their backyard.
A new way of eating – adding steamed vegetables to our breakfast or dinner entrees. It fuels us with travelling energies.
15 days of fun, playfulness, long driving, some in treacherous conditions of no light, zigzag, fog, mountainous roads, at times for me, three rosaries but three competent drivers, ages 80, 77, and 69yo got us back in Orewa in one piece. Thank you so much to my in-laws in this my favorite place on earth.
In our road trips to 29 national parks in the USA, nothing compares to this beautiful place kept tidy, clean, neat, and peaceful. Expansive green mowed grass in ranches interrupted by creeks, river of love where cattle and thousands of sheep graze, relax calmly to receive the sun, very small houses to give room for the animals to graze in acres and acres of wild land, where yellow trees are interspersed in uninterrupted green spaces with blue skies, thick cumulus clouds and at times, two layers of sunset.
Folks are sweet, genteel, warm, and so helpful. Even security police are calm and relaxed in the Parliament Building.
Streets are well paved and public work trucks repair the roads from early morning to almost dinner time.
We must have stopped at close to 40 BP gas stations with very clean restrooms except in Pukerore-Bombay, this was the road sign – making that destination known to customers.
There is truly pride of place in this country, pride in their Parliament where marked seats are designated for the majority government and the opposition to sit. Here, the government prioritizes wellbeing, wellness, family life-work balance. Child care is subsidized, as rent for the elderly. This is a country whose rule of law makes the vulnerable like children, seniors and women are given primary treatment. Even their museums give respect to the original Maori people and their timeline as a country includes integrated voices of the refugees, why they fled their birthplaces to come here and welcomed and integrated as “mixing migrants” into their fold. What a paradise!!
I found truly heaven on earth where women got their voting rights in the 1800’s, New Zealand’s gift to the world!!
I learned to exist at 0 F to 60 F. That was the broad range of temperatures, as we drove from North Island to South Island’s ChristChurch and back to North Island.
The non-stop beauty of expansive acres of farms dotted with the serenity of feeding sheep, interrupted at times by cattle, and green verdant hills of evergreen pine trees. It makes you say, Thank you Lord for this beauty.
Driving from freezing ChristChurch to rainy Picton, with swaying tree branches
A picturesque drive, pastoral landscapes, grape vineyards losing their yellow leaves to brown, while 200 miles south, vineyards are still green and yellow, about to lose their leaves, while one sees verdant hills and on the lower grounds divided by creeks and rivers, sheep are grazing and feeding, with sunset in the horizon forming.
On the shoulder of the roads are green, bright yellow and red leaves on trees and hills covered by pine trees. 51 F feels like Christmas in May and some trees denuded from deforestation. Is the process of deforestation to wetlands preservation? Theme of #RewildingAeoteroea was seen in some street posters.
We stopped at Cod and Crayfish once on the way to ChristChurch and another on the way back to Picton. Green lipped mussels are so good and so sweet. Cod was quite fresh and gosh, crayfish tasted like lobsters minus the large claws.
Life is slow, peaceful and serene except for that one encounter at Caltex in Kaikoura.
Prior post: “Don’t stop at @Caltex in Kaikoura in South Island – nasty manager who discriminated six of us. My brother in law had to tell them he worked at Caltex for 20 years and he’s ashamed of the treatment we received: harsh tone, denigrating statement, “Did you understand” and stopped us like we were going to steal.
Considering we have been travelling from North to South Island for 15 days, the tail of the devil greeted us at Caltex in Kaikoura. I hope the head office will take action to give this branch hate prevention training.
She could have welcomed us and explained politely that the toilet is free for customers. To say it without presumptions would have been okay.”
Would you believe after riding the tram traversing through 15 stations – we met several young, risk-taking Filipino entrepreneurs?
First, at a gas station, we met a Filipino mechanic from General Santos in Mindanao who helped us. He sold us the battery and installed it in Bert’s van. We were following him in our rented rv van and we were a hundred kilometers away from Christchurch, our lodging place for 3 nights. We were so glad to meet him as he was do glad to meet us, having vern in New Zealand for just months. He applied for the job online and he got petitioned by his employer.
The next day, we travelled by tram, went to 25 stations, got familiarized with the city center and started to walk crossing the river. It was a very windy morning, the chill factor felt like being inside a refrigerator. It was 42 F. We git to the flea market and ran into ‘SangKutsa’ meaning Sautee, a truck business offering adobo crunchy chicken, sinigang crunchy chicken and pork humba. We got two plates to share amongst us and these sweet owners gave us free fruit juices. Imagine that spirit of generosity?
When we got to the last and beginning stop, stop 1, we noticed a Filipino restaurant, open from 10 am to 10pm, with rest hours of 2 to 4pm. We decided to try them for dinner and had pancit canton, bulalo, pinakbet with bagnet, lechon kawali and bangus sisig. The owners are young Filipinos, from La Union, whose business was just opened 4 months ago in Christchurch tram square and are doing well.
Location plus good chef make for a healthy beginning. Their restaurant’s name is Eskinita, meaning an alley. The place was well decorated that conveys a feeling of warmth, lightness of living in an island, and great cooking. Our favorite was bangus sisig and pinakbet with bagnet. Guess what – the owners treated us to two glasses of free halo halo.
Cod’s and Crayfish in Kaikoura is a great place to eat huge crayfish, fresh cod, fresh grouper, scallops, oysters, mussels, and prawns. Behind us is snow covered mountains.
This is a great coastline drive from Picton to ChristChurch, halfway.
