I went around taking pictures of their garden. They own the house but the property is shared by everyone in that community.
Around noon we continued on with the journey. We hit lots of gravel roads. Frank wanted me to see the backcountry & also it was an area he & Nina hadn't seen before.
We stopped at a market & bought some snack food for dinner. We stopped & visited Tansy's grandparents, Beth & Tom. Beth reminded me a bit of Vern's Grandma Doris only this woman used to be a biker babe & makes pottery. She was quite heavy & walked with a cane. A long while back, as a pedestrian, she had been struck by a vehicle and "any skinny person would not have survived", said Nina. Tom reminded me of Vern's Grandpa Del only with a NZ accent. Nice man.
We left there & went to Mt. Manganui. It's a tourist town with a very nice campground on the ocean's edge. Ocean on one side of us and a mountain with sheep on the other. It had clean showers & bathrooms, even washing machines. The beach had so many shells that people just walked over them, crushing them. I picked up quite a few whole ones.
For dinner we had crackers, cheeses, avocados, & smoked chicken, wine & cider (which over there has alcohol). I noticed that no one I'd met so far seemed to have napkins or paper towels, even restaurants unless you ask. So when we were at the store I picked up a roll of paper towels which came in handy the whole rest of the trip.
I saw a Takahe bird which is all black with a red beak. And I saw black swans. There are no white swans in NZ.
Tansy & I shared a tent. The air mattress that's a foam pad with a little air in it was not a good one. The air would puff up at the feet making it uncomfortable. It was a new one that Frank had purchased recently & no one had tried it out yet. Oh well, it was better than nothing.
