Farewell Whangamata

The weather on Saturday was miserable. There was drizzle in the morning, a pause and then it set in to rain. Grace and Gavan arrived around eleven and Lorna, Struan, Debbie, Phil, Erin, and Zoe at about twelve. Everybody stood and sat amongst the furniture and boxes for a while. We had lunch in the storage room. Struan and Phil and their families left soon after to head back to Auckland. Gavan and Grace stayed on for two nights. Gavan was a great help lifting things, cleaning and assisting to get everything in to storage. Lorna and Mike spent the week sorting and storing their goods. We still cannot find the cords to any of the portable radios – so there is no music in the shed.
The manufacturers of the C-TUG canoe dolly sent the replacement parts so Mike went out in the ocean again on Thursday. Caught no fish and began to get cold. Landing back on the beach was much less exciting than last week. Mike came ashore further up the beach where the waves were smaller and had to walk the canoe round to the estuary. The tide rushes out through the river mouth and maybe launching would be better done on the beach. We will head up to Auckland on Saturday to farewell the family before setting off south on Monday. It is a little sad that we will not be making the most of our property here for a while but the prospects in Nelson are really exciting.