Down at the Beach

A couple of weeks ago I decided that two weeks in a hostel was probably enough and that I would move down to the beach for a change of scene for a few days before Jo arrives. This I have done today and I am now staying in a cabin in the holiday park at Waitarere (pronounced Whiter-Rarey) Beach. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But in the cold and rain of the New Zealand winter I can’t help but wonder why I left a place with a roaring fire every night and where the toilet wasn’t a hundred yards away across a muddy field for a small hut with cardboard walls and no heating.

The weeks big news is that Jo and I became home owners on Thursday. The house is completely empty, which is why I am not staying there, but if things don’t improve then I might change my mind.

Moaning about the cold aside (and it is winter here), I am pleased with how things are going. One of the most exciting things about relocating is that you get to try out all the different foodstuffs. I don’t mean fancy food; all the ordinary food is slightly different.

You don’t get Heinz baked beans here; Heinz own a Kiwi company called Watties who produce their own variety which is nothing like the real thing. The best brand of beans is, in my opinion, Oak and the worst is Pam’s. Basics is somewhere in between. I haven’t got round to SPC or Budget yet but I will in time.

There are different fruits to try. Obviously there’s the Kiwi fruit which I love (interestingly, the kiwi fruit isn’t native to New Zealand; it’s a Chinese Gooseberry). There’s also the Tomarillo (like a pear with a very strong tomato flavour - yuk) and the fijillo (just yuk).

There is a huge choice of beer for me to work my way through; so far my favourite is Speight’s. There are lots of bakeries in the towns here and the cakes they have are unbelievable; chocolate muffins with toffee centres topped with kit-kat, or Mars bar cake, butterscotch tart, chocolate pie. The cakes are a voyage of discovery in themselves.

So, this is how I have been amusing myself whilst I wait for my family to join me. Life in New Zealand is, for me, like an edition of Which? magazine.