10:37pm: Just felt our first NZ earthquake… I wonder where it originated from. Will have to wait for the news to find out or visit www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html.
10:57pm: Quake was a 7.0 in the South Tarakani Bight… offshore and on other side of the North Island from us. It was a fairly deep one too, so not much damage, thank goodness.
Things have certainly picked up for the Mellos during the last three months. We finally found a house, took a little trip to one of the Pacific islands we had never visited before, and then made the big move. It has been a very exciting time for us and, of course, our animals!
We searched for months and months in the Waikato area where we have lived for the last ten years or so, but weren’t having any luck finding what we were looking for. One day we ran into one of our neighbors, a farmer from down the road, and while explaining our dilemma of loving the beautiful green hills of the area but having just gotten tired of them, he said, “You need a view with water… it’s always changing.” We thought about that and decided he was right, so we changed our search criteria to include water views and that lead us to a house in the Hawke’s Bay region that we liked and decided to buy.
Our New House
But before making the move we had some time to kill, so we took advantage of a bargain online ticket fare for a week on the island of Niue. We had heard of this island because it shows up on the nightly weather forecast on the news, but that’s about all we knew. It is not a highly-traveled place… it came as quite a surprise to learn that there is only one plane a week that makes the trip to Niue… not just from New Zealand, but from anywhere! The airport opens for the arrival and departure of one plane – and that’s it. Our flight was nice and short, it took about 3 1/2 hours to fly from Auckland to Alofi, the island’s only real town. It became apparent to us that the Niueans on the flight were fluent in 2 languages, their native tongue as well as English. They even seem to mix the languages within sentences, for instance the person sitting behind us was rattling on in Niuean then all of a sudden “Chief Medical Officer” came out in English… sort of “Niuenglish.” But this does make sense because all Niueans are also dual citizens with New Zealand and hold NZ passports.
The rocky coast of Niue.
We could see as we were coming in to land that Niue is very flat and covered with green vegetation. We later learned that it is a coral atoll that sits atop an underwater volcano. If Jim had known that before we left he might have decided to go elsewhere! Most of the perimeter of the island is made up of low, rock wall cliffs. There are many caves and chasms available to explore if one is game enough to battle the rocks and sharp coral at low tide. Jim and I were not. We saw several other visitors with cuts, bruises and bandages and decided our time would be better spent sitting on our deck sipping rum punches. There are only 2 beaches on the island, Avatele Beach is made of coral and sandy Hio Beach, which is quite small but very picturesque. It was very hot and humid with very little breeze and we were grateful for the little bit of rain we got while there. Of course with the rain comes the threat of mosquitoes and we also learned that while we were there, the island was experiencing an outbreak of Dengue Fever! The disease had been brought back to Niue from Tonga by, of all people, the Chief Medical Officer!
Hio Beach, the only real sandy beach on the island.
Niue is very small and very laid back. You can travel around the island, on all the roads, in about four hours. The crime rate is generally very low, in fact, there are currently only 2 occupants in the prison, one is an arsonist and the other is his victim – who was arrested when he assaulted the arsonist! They are also in-laws. We were told they now get along very well in the little ‘big house.’ They play cards, eat their meals together and on Sundays the guards take them out to play a round of golf together since the golf course is right next door to the prison. Like I said, very small and very laid back.
One of the prettiest places on the island, Limu Pools.
For a very quiet, no fuss holiday, Niue is a not a bad destination, especially when you live as close as we do. If you like a lot of activities and night life, it’s probably best to keep looking! We had a nice time and it was a good sunny, warm place to go for a little while before starting to pack up house… again.
A Niuean Sunset
It really seemed like forever between the time we got back from Niue until it was time to move to Napier, but it was really only a month. In that time we packed up our rent house, said farewell to our friends of the last ten years and got all of our stuff moved to our new place. It took us about a week to get everything from one place to the other… two rental truck loads, four station wagon loads, one trailer load and one car load – all packed to the gills. It’s a 375 mile round trip from Te Awamutu to Napier and we did it 3 1/2 times. Two people, two dogs, one cat and one goat and we all made it with relatively few scratches. I’m sure we looked like a bunch of hillbillies as we pulled into the driveway!
Jim and Julie at a farewell lunch with our good friends and neighbors, Ross and Maisie.
That’s something I have to mention… the goat. When we left Old Mountain Road back in November of last year, we left our goat Harmony with the people who bought the house. We didn’t have a place to keep her and they were happy to have her. Now that we have some land again, we asked if we could have her back and they said yes. Jim said the funniest part of the entire move was watching me pull out of the driveway of the rent house driving the station wagon packed as full as it could be, pulling a trailer stuffed with dog houses, saw horses, gas cans, a wheelbarrow, miscellaneous ‘stuff,’ a black Labrador and a goat! It may not have been the most pleasant ride, but I think Harmony is glad to be back with us and she seems to be quite relaxed as she sits out in her paddock gazing at the Pacific Ocean.
Our girl Harmony relaxing in the back garden.
We’ve only been here a few weeks and have a lot to learn about our new surroundings… who’s got what and where things are… but that’s all part of the fun. Our new home will be a challenge, too. While the house is certainly sufficient as it is, we intend to make our mark on it and change a few things. In fact, we’ve already pulled up some carpet and torn down a wall! When we found this place we knew the daytime view included Hawke’s Bay, the city of Napier and Cape Kidnapper’s peninsula quite clearly from our vantage point. On a clear day we can even see all the way to Mahia peninsula, which is the other end of the bay. What we didn’t even consider was that we would be able to see Napier at night. Seeing the lights of town from our house is a very pretty sight.
Our view of Hawke’s Bay including the city of Napier on the nearest point, and Cape Kidnapper’s further out.
So the Mellos, complete with Harmony, bid farewell to the Waikato – we certainly enjoyed our time there, and embark upon a new phase in life here in Hawke’s Bay. The one thing we know for sure is that the view from the new homestead is hard to beat and we feel like we are going to get a lot of enjoyment from our new location. After feeling like time was almost standing still, now we don’t know where it goes… the days are just flying by! And for the first time in a long time, we look forward to each new day with anxious anticipation, with new plans and ideas. A good move.
What’s Next?
I’ve heard from several people in the Northern Hemisphere that winter just didn’t happen this year. I’m afraid I can say the same thing for our Southern summer… zippo. There are a good number of Kiwis throughout New Zealand moaning about the number of warm, sunshiny days that just didn’t turn up this summer, ruining trips to the beach and bar-b-ques all over the country. Luckily for Jim and me, we don’t often go to the beach other than just to drive by and check out the scenery every now and then; and we will b-b-q come rain, sleet, snow or hail – so a cool summer didn’t put us off the coals. I think, in all, we had about two weeks of heat… and when I say heat, I mean in the 80’s Fahrenheit, so not exactly scorching. However, I must say that since we moved into autumn in early March, we’ve had some lovely days. It’s been sort of nice to see the seasons change from a different perspective here at our rent house. In addition to the most obvious indicators of the change, the trees and their leaves, we also had a cornfield that was just visible on the horizon from the view out of our office window. In early summer we noticed the corn stalks starting to grow until they finally reached their full height, creating a dark green edge on the neighboring farmer’s pasture. They stayed that way throughout summer until just the other day when we saw a giant machine (I don’t know what it’s called) come in and chop it all down to be used for cattle silage. Now the horizon is back to the way it was when we first moved in.
Autumn Evening On Our Horizon
Even though I got a late start when we moved into the house in November, I did get a small herb and vegetable garden planted that yielded some good results. My zucchini and corn were great and we got several good eats from them, but the tomatoes weren’t so good. First of all, I think the plants I bought were mislabeled and I didn’t get the nice, big beefy tomatoes I thought I was buying. Second, it was just a bad season all around for tomatoes. All of my gardener friends had bad luck with their plants just like I did… from diseases, to misshapen tomatoes, to failure to launch. So, I didn’t feel so bad when I heard I wasn’t the only one. My herbs took off and continue to grow nicely, as did the passion fruit vine, lemons and limes that are residents here. The other thing I didn’t have any luck with this year was my watermelons. The vines grew beautifully, but the flowers and fruit just turned brown and died… not sure what happened there. Overall, I was happy with how it all turned out since I wasn’t sure I would get a chance to have any sort of garden while renting.
The remains of my summer garden.
I continue to be amazed at how well our pets have adjusted to “city life.” The dogs hardly pay attention to passers-by at our front gate, when at our old house they raised the roof at the mere whiff of anyone in the area. On trash pick-up day, nothing would do but they had to bark, bark, bark at the poor men picking up the garbage at the other place… but here, they’ve gotten so used to noise that they don’t even raise a lazy nose off the front porch. Amazing transformation. Leroy cat just thinks he owns not only our yard, but the ones on either side of us and probably more for all I know. He thinks the cat door is the greatest invention of all time and, I’m sure, whatever house we move into will require the installation of a similar device if it doesn’t have one already!
Relaxing In The Back Yard
Our search for a new place to live continues. We have thoroughly searched the area where we currently live, the Waikato, and have not found anything we really like. In the last month or so we have expanded our search to areas outside of the Waikato. While we hadn’t at first thought we’d move too far from our original location, it may be that to find what we are looking for we’ll have to look further afield. Shopping for a house now is certainly a different process compared to what it was the last time we did it 10 years ago. Back then you had to search through the Saturday newspaper, from one general area, and drive to each and every house you might be interested in; now you have the ability to look on the internet everyday for the latest listings of every house in the country (if you want to), or just certain areas, look at pictures of them to weed them out, and then pick a few you really are interested in. In a way it is better because there are certainly more to choose from, but at the same time it is almost sensory overload… some days you just have to take a break and not look at any houses at all!
One of the things that has remained the same for me during our recent transition is my little Pilates class. We started this class about 4 1/2 years ago at our 
community hall and have met pretty much once a week this whole time. There are people who have dropped in and out over time, but there is a core 5 or 6 of us that has been there from the beginning because we love getting together, not only for the exercise, but for the friendship too. As often as not we will have coffee after our session at someone’s house or at the cafe in the nearest village! One of our longtime attendees, Caroline, just this week packed up her family and headed off to Italy for a long-term adventure… we will miss her, but know they are going to have a great time and we all look forward to hearing from her while she is there. (There are some in the group suggesting a Pilates trip to Italy, but that might be stretching the budget!)
Leroy and I play with a wadded up napkin.
I wish there were more to write about, but it has been a fairly subdued three months. I can’t complain, though, quiet is good. We were really lucky to find a nice little rent house in a good neighborhood. If you look out one end of the house you see a few houses at the end of the street, but if you look out the other end, all you see is grass and cows! That’s fine… I’ll take quiet any day… maybe there will be more to write about in the next quarter.
A farmer down the road takes his cows to the milking shed.
Last quarter I didn’t publish a newsletter, if I had it would have been extremely short and unbearably sad, so I decided just to skip it. For one thing, it was bad timing with me having just been in the hospital for a short visit (not a big deal – but I didn’t feel like sitting at the computer afterwards!); for another reason, not a lot had happened that was newsworthy and what had happened, I didn’t feel like writing about. So, I’ll do a quick look back over what was our winter and then mention the more current events of spring.
The recap of our winter made me realize it wasn’t one I want to recall in too much detail. The wet and cold months seemed to go on and on, but I guess that’s to be expected to some degree. We at least had our pigeons to keep us busy during that time. And we did get busy with our racing bird breeding season, continuing to refine our baby-raising program. It wasn’t long before eggs we laid, hatched and the little ones were out of the nests and trying their wings! I always enjoy watching the little birds graduate from living in nest with mom and dad to moving into the larger rooms with their peers. Every year I’m genuinely surprised the first day each of them flies… I don’t know why!
Not Quite Ready To Fly
Willie’s Last Picture
We thought we’d have a little more time to do some planning, but as it turned out we had about six weeks to pack things up and find a place to live. It was a pretty organized move-out, I have to say, and we packed up the usual personal belongings in boxes, bags, suitcases, etc. We thought the most difficult thing to do would be to re-home animals, but that went pretty well. The pigeons went to various guys in Jim’s racing pigeon club, Harmony (our other goat) stayed at the farm with the new owners, and JR, Scarlet and Leroy relocated with us. The latter three have adjusted to city life pretty well. We have fondly nick-named the little house we are in “The Avacado” after it’s green color! It is located next-door to a reserve, which is like a little park, which in turn is next to a farmer’s paddock – so our views are still quite pastoral. We still hear cows moo-ing and currently can see corn growing in the most distant field.
Porch Monkies
The Avacado
The Te Awamutu Rose Garden in Full Bloom
A Cloudy New Year’s Eve Day
So, that’s my big news this quarter. Here’s wishing everyone a very healthy and Happy New Year!
