Wintering in Taranaki

When we came back to Taranaki it was a glorious day. This picture was taken at Mokau.

We’ve been staying in Stratford for the past few weeks. It’s been really wet and cold, so not too much incentive to venture forth. Great weather for the ducks! These visitors were wandering around outside our rig.

Fortunately, we have a couple of places down here in the 'Naki to settle down for a while. As always, the mountain dominates the landscape and on a day like this, looks glorious.

I escaped the NZ winter for a week and flew to Chicago at the beginning of August for work meetings and a conference. I spent two days in this amazing auditorium at Willow Creek Community Church that seats 7000 people.

They have another auditorium as well (Lakeside Auditorium) that’s about half the size but still huge. The whole place is just beautiful.

While I was away, Dave stayed in Stratford parked up on our friends’ property. Although it rained most of the time we were there, it really is a beautiful spot. Quiet and peaceful.

Garth and Helen have a bus they travel around in on occasion, and they've set up this fabulous spot just below their house. They have power and water available and there's plenty of space for us to manoeuvre around.

Actually, our rig looks quite small alongside their bus!

Getting in and out of their property was a little worrying to begin with as they have quite a hump at the top of their drive, but I think we’ve gotten used to it now—this is our second visit— and we just make sure we have the tailgate down on the ute as we drive over it.

A few days ago, we moved on to Inglewood and are now parked outside our daughter and son-in-law’s home. Still in the shadow of Mt Egmont/Taranaki.

We'll be staying around Taranaki for the next month or so—probably until mid-October. Some of the time we'll be house-sitting in Inglewood. After this, we plan to travel a bit further north, maybe up around the Coromandel. We've had a couple of lovely sunny days lately so maybe summer really is coming!