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While Bob and I are in Auckland, Auckland is a large city of approximately 1.7 million, so to be more specific we are staying in the Mount Albert neighborhood of Auckland. It is a lovely residential area with lots of schools. While we have had really only two days of exploring, we have had a number of coincidences in meeting people or places that remind of us of home or places we’ve just visited.

First coincidence — about the only thing we left the house for on our first full day here was to go check out the local community center (YMCA) that our home owner had recommended and pick up some groceries. At the rec center the woman who met with us was born in China, raised in New Zealand, and studied at UW Green Bay! She took an immediate liking to us and introduced us to a young woman from California who has been in New Zealand for 5 years.

On Friday, the rain stopped, so we got out to do more exploring. We thought we should start in “our” hood, so we walked to a historical home called Alberton that we had read about. It was built by Allen Kerr Taylor, a Scotsman who had emigrated to New Zealand after marrying a woman in India who was of mixed ancestry. They weren’t accepted in either India or Scotland, so they came to New Zealand to start anew. The home was originally built as a farmhouse but was later expanded to an 18 room mansion as his wealth (and family) grew. It is now a museum but also serves as an event space for weddings, etc.

From the Alberton home, we summited Mount Albert which was just a couple of blocks from the home and used to be part of Mr. Taylor’s estate. It also used to be larger. The top half of the original mountain was removed for quarrying. The top now has large green spaces, a couple of soccer fields, and what seemed to be an empty pasture. It seemed to be a popular place to take dogs.

Bob found us a great pathway for our walk about. A treeway actually. It was lovely and made you feel far removed from the city. Signage stated that is a recovering green corridor to protect two threatened ecosystems– lava flow forest and wetland. Yep, not in Texas anymore.

The second coincidence on Friday was that we discovered the neighborhood next to ours is called Morningside which is also the name of the college where Bob and I got our undergraduate degrees. Bob was doing some research on a place to try for a drink and noted that there was a Morningside Tavern in that area (about a 25 minute walk from the house). We decided we had to try it just because of the name but then especially when the website showed that they made cocktails. However, it became mandatory that we go when the tavern website explained the origin of the name Morningside.

Third coincidence– Morningside is named after a nickname of Allen Kerr Taylor (he of the Alberton house fame, see above)! Allen’s older brothers also came to New Zealand but bought land in other parts of Auckland that they felt were far superior to the area where Allen was buying land. In fact they thought he was crazy to buy the then swampy land and called Allen “Morningside” after an Edinburgh suburb known for its lunatic asylum. After proving them wrong and succeeding in his businesses, he embraced the name and used it for this area of Auckland when he was dividing up his estate. (Note the coincidence here is that we had just been at this guy’s house to appreciate this story, not that our college was in any way similar to a lunatic asylum.)

On our second day in New Plymouth we got reacquainted with Pukekura Park, Marsden Hill, and a bit of the town center. Pukekura Park is 128 acres which is a combination of beautiful parkland, sports areas, museum, and concert area. There’s also a small zoo on the grounds. We started by walking towards Pukekura Park, but we stopped for a photo when Bob found a big head photo op along the way.

More pretty plants

We discovered Marsden Hill on our first visit doing a walk of historic or important sites that we had picked up at the visitor’s center. It contains an observatory, war memorial, and carillon and provides a great view of New Plymouth.

A view of New Plymouth from atop the hill

The town center is lovely, as it lies along the coast but also has a great art museum, public art, and a good selection of retail and dining options.

When Bob and I knew we would be coming back to New Zealand we knew we had to make time to get to New Plymouth where we did our first international house sit. That house sit was for two dogs, Jess and Baz, for 6 weeks back in 2015.

We have just had two lovely days revisiting some of our favorite areas in New Plymouth. It felt great to walk around and remember various places. We stayed at a motel near where our house sit was, so we started by walking by having breakfast at a favorite neighborhood spot and then walking by “our” house. We didn’t stop by to see the homeowners, as they have since moved to Auckland.

We also visited the Te Henui Cemetery along the trail — really beautiful and peaceful.

After walking along the Te Henui path inland, we walked it out to the coast to walk along the Coastal Walkway away from the town center.

Our first full day in New Zealand was just about perfect. We awoke in Hamilton, a city of about 170,000 southeast of Auckland, and the third fastest-growing urban area. We had been in Hamilton briefly in 2015 when we had a layover during our bus trip from Taupo to New Plymouth. At that time, we were exclusively in the CBD and had a nice walk on part of their river walk and then a nice lunch at a cute, local restaurant.

This time our motel was a bit outside the CBD but very close to Lake Rotoroa with a great path around it. I ran around it early in the morning and told Bob we needed to go back during daylight to really see it. We were both glad we did.

That was a little bit of awesome we thought. What could top that? Well, I don’t know about topping it (and does it really need to be a competition?), but the Hamilton Gardens that we visited next was pretty cool.

Hamilton Gardens is a public park which is owned and managed by the Hamilton City Council! It is free to the public. It is on the banks of the Waikato River (the one we had walked along downtown on our earlier visit). It includes a plethora (my term) of enclosed gardens, a lovely information center, a great lawn (where they were having a kite festival for kids), and cafes.

We were astonished at the number of gardens each somewhat hidden so that you think you are entering a small area but it just keeps going. They had gardens representing Japan, China, India, England, Italy, native New Zealand, plus modern art gardens and a sustainable food garden. We’d love to return in 2020 when their Surrealist garden will be done.

We left lovely Hamilton about 12:30 to head to New Plymouth. The distance between the two is only 147 miles but takes over 3 hours because of the VERY curvy and hilly terrain. To make it “worse” it was beautiful as well, but you can’t really enjoy it (especially if you’re driving) because you have to focus so much on the road. All-in-all a beautiful day.

Bob and I are in New Zealand. It was a long slog to get here, and we almost didn’t get out of Austin. We flew Delta and then Virgin Australia. The Delta Boarding agent called us to the gate shortly before the boarding process started to ask us if we had a visa to visit New Zealand. We didn’t need one since our stay is shorter than 3 months. We showed her info online that supported that. Her co-worker confirmed it, but her system wouldn’t let her proceed without the visa info, so she ended up having to call and get verbal approval. That person provided approval but wouldn’t document anything online to support her override of the system, so she had her co-worker type the approval so she could let us get on the plane. Apparently boarding agents get penalized for letting individuals on planes who don’t have approval to enter the country to which they are flying. We were very relieved when we were on the plane and it took off for LAX.

We arrived in LA about 6:30 pm, and our flight to Sydney, Australia didn’t leave until 11:45. The LAX Bradley International Terminal is interesting, but not really 4+ hours interesting. We were both amazed at the number of late night (to us) flights. We kept waiting for things to quiet down and stores to start to close, but we never saw it. People just kept coming in and new flights kept getting posted.

The 15 hour flight to Sydney was as comfortable as you’d think a long time spent sitting in a confined space would be for that length of time. We did luck out in that we had reserved an aisle and window seat in a 3-seat row hoping that no one would take the middle seat and that’s what happened so we had a bit more space than we might have. I don’t usually watch the movies on offer, but I did this time and was impressed. If you have a chance to see Stan and Ollie about Laurel and Hardy’s final year touring together across the UK take it, it’s a sweet movie. I also watched Free Solo (as did Bob who had already seen it) about the only guy to complete a free solo ascent of El Capitan. Still don’t get the desire there but completely in awe. Finally, Bob and I both watched a 30 min documentary on Sriracha sauce. Fun and interesting — the sauce originated in Thailand but the one most of us eat in the US (picture of rooster on bottle) was created by a Chinese man who came to the US from Vietnam and it’s made in CA.

We landed in the Sydney International terminal and were there for 2.5 hours until our flight to Auckland. We were dreading it because the last time we had to fly in there it was incredibly noisy and sterile with little room to walk around. We found it pleasantly changed. It was bright and quiet. They have even designated themselves as a quiet terminal (see below). Not sure what this means exactly, as people were talking without being hushed but they have obviously made some sound-proofing changes.

I know it’s just McDonald’s and it’s not the first use of this technology but for our sleep-deprived brains it provided a few minutes of entertainment.

After a 2.5 hour flight from Sydney we arrived in Auckland at 3:30 pm on Friday having left Austin at 5:15 pm on Wednesday, but we weren’t done yet. Prior to starting our house sit in Auckland, we wanted to revisit New Plymouth where we had done a 6-week house sit in 2015. Since it’s a 4+ hour drive from Auckland to New Plymouth, we decided to shorten the initial drive by only going as far as Hamilton the day of our arrival. It was a good decision because after having picked up our bags, calling the shuttle to take us to the offsite rental car agency, and then heading out in Auckland rush hour traffic the 1.5 hour drive was closer to 2.5 hours. We arrived at our motel at 6:45 pm. Bob got right back into his “wrong”-side of the road driving skills.

The motel gave us the typical New Zealand welcome — milk to take to your room to go with your tea or coffee.

It’s now Sunday and we are rested and loving this beautiful country. More travel news and photos to come.

Our current house sit is in Canyon Lake, Texas. Canyon Lake is both a lake and the name of the geographical area surrounding the lake which is actually six communities — Crane’s Mill, Canyon City, Hancock, Fischer, Startzville, and Sattler. The home we are caring for is most closely located to the Hancock community where we have shopped in a lovely new Brookshire Brothers grocery (And had a drink in their cafe) and visited their cute community library.

The Preston Memorial Library

Awesome mural inside the library

Library grounds contain trails, artwork, an observatory, and butterfly garden

Canyon Lake, the lake, was created in 1966, after the completion of the Canyon Dam to control flooding downstream of the Guadalupe River. The lake covers 8,240 surface acres, has 80 miles of shoreline and contains enough water to fill 190,400 Olympic sized swimming pools. It also has 23 boat ramps, 2 marinas, five day use parks and 4 camping parks. Besides helping to control flooding, the dam is also a hydroelectric facility.

Thanks to some friends, we were able to enjoy the lake and the dam from the lake and not just the land.

A view of the lake and dam — the top of the dam is 224 feet above the riverbed.

Some people enjoying the lake at Overlook Park.

Another view of the lake from the land, the water is surprisingly clear

Another new, attractive flower for the collection

Looking at the lake from a restaurant patio at one of the marinas

On Saturday afternoon, we met up with friends who are members of the Lake Canyon Yacht Club to go sailing. They provided great instruction on the sailing of their boat (Catalina 27 model if I’m remembering correctly) as well as the correct sailing terminology — tiller, rutter, lines, jib, traveler (my favorite), port (Bob’s favorite), starboard, winch, etc.

They even let Bob and I have a go at steering. I took to it like a duck to snowboarding. Yea, I abandoned the tiller (but not the ship) pretty quickly. Bob, on the other hand, did really well and captained the boat for a good while. However, I think he preferred doing the more manual work with the masts and other rigging, so he could talk about the size of his biceps.

Canyon Lake is part of the central Texas area known as the Hill Country. It’s a beautiful area with lots of trees, rolling hills, charming towns, and an abundance of wineries, breweries, and distilleries. On Friday, we met up with some friends from Austin for lunch in Wimberley, a town of about 2,700 with a cute town square with lots of restaurants and retail as well as a great restaurant a bit outside the town square called The Leaning Pear.

We also had to try at least one of the wineries in the area while we were here, so we visited the Wimberley Valley Winery for a shared tasting. They make a range of whites and reds and import a few others to ensure they’ll have something to offer anyone who has any like for wine at all. It’s a very attractive facility.

Cheers!

On Sunday we headed back to Texas from an awesome four-day visit with family. While logistically, we dropped off our few belongings with Bob’s sister and brother-in-law, we also got to see more of Bob’s family and new and old friends as we feted Cheryl on her retirement. Beth apparently had too good of a time and didn’t really want to leave (read on).

Sunday night we stayed in Guthrie, Oklahoma to break up the long drive. It was about an 8 hour ride from Carroll, Iowa. Upon arrival at the motel in Guthrie, Beth noticed that she had left almost all of her clothes (those that she had unpacked and put in the motel dresser) back in Iowa. Words were said that won’t be printed here. Initially, the motel in Iowa was contacted but ultimately Cheryl and Jody had to come to the rescue again to pick up Beth’s clothes and send to her via UPS.

But I digress, Guthrie was the territorial capital of Oklahoma and was also the state capital for the first three years of Oklahoma’s statehood. It has a lovely historic downtown area that we drove through after having read about it.

After a quick stop at the car rental office in Austin, we arrived Monday afternoon in Canyon Lake to meet Jan and Tom and our quartet of pets.

Jan and Tom are both master gardeners, but Tom has a special affinity for orchids. We are in charge of watering the various hanging, mounted, and potted orchids that he is growing in his greenhouse as well as monitoring the temperature and humidity as the Texas heat starts escalating. We have no idea the names of the various types of orchids, but we do know they are very attractive. We also learned that at least for some of the orchids, their roots whiten as they become dry and turn green as they receive a sufficient amount of watering. I like this idea and wish that we could each turn colors when we’ve had enough food, conversation, etc., so we and others would clearly see when enough is enough.

More to come on our Canyon Lake visit.

I thought I might do a brief blog on our current life in terms of scheduling our stays and getting to where we need to be, etc. I will try not to venture into TMI, but you can let me know via e-mail or comments whether I need to work on my editing skills and/or if I’ve neglected a topic of interest.

As you may know, we use the website http://www.trustedhousesitters.com to look for house sits. This is a membership-based website, so you pay an annual fee to either post a listing looking for house sitters or create a profile as house sitters or both. Everyday we receive 2 e-mails with the latest house sit opportunities. We can look at these or logon to the website or app and filter by dates, locations, pet types, etc to identify potential house sits. When we see something that catches our interest, we open the full posting, note the number of applications already received (We tend not to apply to those who have already received 7 or more replies, as we feel like home owners are likely to do the most thorough reviews on the first few respondents.), and read through the posting to see number and types of animals requiring care and other home care duties required. We also always review whether the sitters need a car since we do not have one and would only want to rent one for a very short sit in an area that we were very interested in. Sometimes the sit requires a car, and if the home owners provide one, we apply for those as well.

Once we’ve applied, if the home owner is interested, we may be confirmed right away but usually we will have an interview with the home owners via phone or Skype so that we can all see if we might be a good fit. These arrangements are all trust-based, so it’s good to get a sense of each other before committing formally on the website. The website also provides a contract template, and we have signed a few of those for home owners as well when asked. We recently had a phone interview with a home owner in Virginia while we were doing our San Francisco house sit and did a Skype session with a home owner in DC while we were en route to Iowa from Austin.

We currently have our schedule complete through 3/25/20 and then a commitment for a return to Oakland in late May/ early June next year as well as a return to Scotland next August.

Here’s our house-sitting itinerary as it stands today:

July 2019. Auckland, New Zealand

Aug 2019. Auckland, New Zealand/Hamburg, Germany

Sep 2019 Hamburg, Germany/Derby, England/Little Hampton, England

Oct 2019. Denver, CO

Nov 2019. Sun Prairie, WI/Atlanta, GA

Dec 2019. Atlanta, GA/Winchester, VA/Incheon, South Korea

Jan 2020. Incheon, South Korea/Walmer, England

Feb 2020. Walmer, England/Austin, TX/Washington, DC/Tubac, AZ

Mar 2020. Tubac, AZ

Late May- Early June. Oakland, CA

Aug 2020. Thornhill, Scotland

As you might surmise, there is a great deal of travel planning that is needed to make this work. There are often air flights needed to get us to the right country or state but for house sits in smaller towns there may also be additional bus or train trips needed to get us from the airport to the correct cities. Then if we can’t walk from where we land to the house, there may be a taxi or Uber ride as well. Bob is the go-to person for our travel planning. He could create a job for himself in the travel field should we ever stop traveling and land somewhere.

We are planners, so we have our flight or other modes of transportation purchased months in advance; however, nothing can prevent the occasional curve ball. We got dealt one of those, as we were preparing to leave San Francisco. On the morning of our departure, we learned that our flight on American was cancelled due to storms the prior day in Dallas. None of the offered alternatives (all red-eyes that would get us in the morning after the time we were to pick up a rental car in Austin for a drive to Iowa) were going to work, so he got us on a Southwest flight and got the American flights refunded. We were to have flown through Phoenix on the way to Austin but ended up flying through Denver and got a lovely shot of the snow-covered mountains on the way in.

We had a very fast one day in Austin before we picked up our remaining belongings from friends who had stored them in their garage for a month. Thank you Bobby and Margaret! I was amazed we got everything in our rented Chevrolet Equinox, but Bob packed well.

I was excited to be traveling by car for a bit so we wouldn’t be at the mercy of airlines, but it seems to be road construction season on I35 so we didn’t have quite as much control of our time as I thought we might.

We have been in Iowa for the past few days enjoying time with relatives, celebrating a retirement, and imposing on family now to store our stuff until we decide our next official steps. Much thanks to Bob’s sister and brother-in-law, Cheryl and Jody, for once again letting us keep our stuff at their house!

On our first full day in San Francisco Bob and I walked from “our” home in the Portola District down to Oracle Park, home of the Giants and then further into downtown to the Civic Center Plaza with lots of governmental buildings before walking back to “our” home mostly along Mission Street.

It was a great walk on a beautiful day and Bob got a photo to share with his nephews and brother-in-law to remind them of a prior baseball trip.

Public art piece

On Thursday evening of this week, Bob and I moved across the bay from Oakland to San Francisco to do a brief house sit for a couple who are getting married in Oregon while they are away. Their dog is in the ceremony, or at least accompanied them, so we having been caring for their house and their sweet, friendly cat Frankie. There was no adjustment time needed for this cat. She took right to us, and she’s been very easy to love right back.

Meet Frankie.

Our San Francisco “home” is in the Portola neighborhood which is in the very southeast section of the city. It’s known as the secret neighborhood with its own public radio station. It has a lot of schools and the main retail street, San Bruno, has a number of mostly Asian groceries and restaurants– the real kind with occasional English subtitles. As with the rest of San Francisco, if you walk outside with your eyes open you’ll see serious hills and if you walk more than a few blocks you’ll feel them whether your eyes are open or not. DISCLAIMER: I am not advising anyone to walk outside with their eyes closed!

Portola Branch Library

One of the highlights of the neighborhood besides all of the schools and a great rec center down the street from us is the huge John McLaren Park. At 313 acres, it is the 3rd largest park in San Francisco after Golden Gate and Presidio. Pretty amazing for a city to have so many large parks.

Just a brief rant, but I don’t think when the parks post signs for people to pick up after their dogs that they mean for them to then drop the dog’s poo back down in the park just because it’s bagged. We see this fairly frequently.