Xmas and New Year in New Zealand

We drove to Wellington and had a lovely Xmas with my family.—although it is hard to feel as though it is Xmas when it is sunny and hot. Even the few lights on the houses are not visible until 9pm as it is not dark until then. We did share time with all of the family though and everyone feels very relaxed and summery. Most places are closed for 2 weeks over Xmas which makes it easy for families to get together.
We were able to take my mother around in the car—she is limited in her mobility with her arthritis so appreciates getting out. A lot of the family drops in on her on a regular basis but her world has shrunk a lot as she ages. We drove to the beaches as she loves to be near the sea.
We did persuade her to let us rent a wheelchair for her at Te Papa museum in Wellington which worked very well. They had a special exhibition of a giant squid which had been caught by a fishing boat and had been wrapped around a fish in the Ross Sea near Antarctic. It was huge and hopefully none will attach themselves to any fish we catch!!
We had a fairly lazy time taking a few day hikes in between taking mum around and flew back to Auckland in the New Year. We had a day in Auckland wandering around the America’s cup basin which is always pleasant and then caught the bus back to Whangarei to the boat.
The fibre glassing was complete and with a fine spell of weather we were able to finish the painting and polishing and get the boat back in the water on schedule.
As we motored out the Whangarei River one of the engines which had been worked on began to squeal. The mechanic drove to meet us and is unable to figure out what the problem is.
We decided to spend a couple of days at the idyllic bays in the area and head back to Opua which is en route to Wellington anyway to see if someone here can pinpoint the problem. After a day working on various options no one here can come up with an easy fix so in the meanwhile we are going to live with it and see if it works itself out.
We met up with old friends who have been in this area since they arrived which is always nice.
In the morning we will continue to head up north with Gaiasu, a Canadian catamaran which is going to buddy boat with us around Cape Reinga—the northern most cape in NZ and then will go down to Wellington with them. It will be fun to do it with someone else as there are far fewer boats going there than had been with us on previous passages. We will put into some of the small bays on the way north and do some fishing, swimming and hanging out as it looks as though we will have to wait a week to get northerly winds coming of an anticyclone to bring us south. We are looking forward to being a cruising boat again. As it is mid summer here everyone is holidaying on their boats in the anchorages and all we seem to be doing is boat repairs. We want to holiday too!!!!!
We will have southerlies to take us up and we will stop at the northern most anchorage until the northerlies develop and then go around the top and then 3 days or so to get south. If the weather in the Cook Strait is OK we will turn and head into Wellington but if as is often the case it is bad we will go to the top of the South Island and find shelter and cross when it calms down. The Cook Strait is one of the most notorious stretches of water in the world and as an ex Wellingtonian I have the utmost respect for it.
I will update the blog after our arrival.
Hope it is not too cold where you are—about 25C here each day.