Sunday, March 29: Rain at first clearing to cloudy through to sunny with a shower or two

Tramping: Tokatoka, 0.6 km (return)

Peter & Sara’s (airbnb, $50)

It was pouring when I got up, and I had my breakfast and was finished well before Michelle got up. I was in no hurry and it was raining so I leisurely packed my stuff. In time she was up and under the shower; then I gave her a copy of the book and was off to Tom’s.

Was there pretty much on the dot of 11:00 and Cather & the boys were still collecting their stuff for the day’s programme. Charlotte was very enthusiastic and had to be taken outside. Eventually all were ready to leave and Tom & I went down to Takapuna to a very posh place with all-organic, gluten-free etc. stuff for brunch. Tom had some scrambled eggs and I opted for the chilli chicken on ciabatta, both with flat whites.

Discussion was wide-ranging and we were enjoying ourselves quite a bit. Walk down the beach and back and the day was developing quite well. Stopped at a pair of sea kayaks which I explained to Tom. Back at their place, Oliver was brought back to do some homework and in the meantime I showed Tom 44 of the 50 best pictures to a cup of tea. Mid-afternoon arrived and I decided to push on to my farmstay. Lots of traffic lining up to return to Auckland (have to keep this in mind for Easter Monday). Stopped off in Warkworth to organise the maps and then onto the turn off and along the very adventurous road to Ruawai.

Found the Tokatoka View B&B despite GoogleMaps (they were wanting to send me to the wrong side of the road and quite far at that) and was met by Sara, and then Peter, and finally Bella the dalmatian. Lots of chat, then Peter offered to take me up Tokatoka so we donned our boots and were off in his tool filled ute. Short climb to the top, very interesting view in the setting sun. Did one time lapse of the rain showers on the other side of the river and a handheld panorama. Tokatoka is a volcanic plug, the rest of the volcano has been weathered to nothing.

Back here Peter prepared dinner (tomato soup, corned beef, corn fritter, fried kumara, tomato salad, raspberry cake with hokey-pokey and feijoa), then it was time to explore our worlds with GoogleEarth. Sunset series was taken throughout dinner, and the last couple of thousand pictures will be unusable, but anyhow. Time to start sorting some pictures.