Flying cats and milk

Wednesday 01 April Rain at first then mainly overcast 18C Drove 230km

I woke up whilst it was still dark to hear the rain hammering on the windows. This wasn't entirely unexpected, as the forecast for Wednesday had been for rain and after several weeks of almost uninterupted sunshine, we could hardly complain. New Zealand is a very green country, clearly a sign that it rains regularly. The good thing, is that the rain is only expected to last until afternoon and then it should clear up.

I've never seen a flying cat. I confess that there have been times when I would like to have taught some cats to fly, but this time it was not me helping it along. Driving slowly along a rural country road somewhere to the south of Whangarei, as we came around a corner, a cat flew out of a hedge. I can clearly see it now, its legs spread out, airborne some 3-4 feet above a ditch by the side of the road. It was a black cat with a white chest. Some few inches in front of the cat flew a female mallard duck. Whereas the duck looked quite normal, if somewhat flustered, in the air, the cat looked rather shaken to discover that the ground was several feet below it. Needless to say, on contact with the ground, and lets face facts, that's the only place the cat was going to go, the cat did that thing where they sit down, lick their shoulders, and look it was all deliberate. I also have this vision of the cat making some minor contact with the duck as it flew off, and becoming airborne with it.

The road from Ngungara to Whangarei was wet all the way, but it eased off as we arrived at Whangarei Falls. In the interests of tourism, I donned my cagoule and walked down to the rather impressive falls to take a few photos. Of course, once I was several hundred metres away from the car, on the opposite side of the river, the rain returned with avengance. It's only water.

Once south of Whangerei on our favourite road, not, the SH1 we looked for a turn-off to get onto the rural roads again. At Waipu we joined Cove Road and followed the coast down to Bream Tail and Mangawhai Heads. A compulsory stop for coffee and a sneaky cake was taken here at a garden centre. Why do garden centres always have such good food?

Somewhere to the south of Mangawhai, the curious incident of the cat took place as we headed through some small roads still trying to avoid the SH1. Somewhere, and not easily followed on the map we have, we found ourselves on the Whangaripo Valley Road heading for Pakiri and Leigh. Luckily for us, the section that was marked as gravel road had recently been turned into a surface road. Just north of Leigh, we turned off to visit the Cape Rodney/Okakari Point Marine Reserve, also known as Goat Island. This small cove with the island just 100 metres off shore is supposed to be an excellent site for snorkelling and diving. Although it wasn't raining, the easterly wind blowing hard onto the shore put us off climbing into the water. It hadn't put off a school party all of whom were snorkelling just off the island; there must have been 40 of them. When I first saw them, I thought they were seabirds sitting on the surface, a look through the binos quickly identified them as human heads!

Further down the road at Matakana, we found an artisan bakery, a seriously tempted place to be. The filled rolls looked fantastic and the foccacia roll I had was excellent. Some of the cakes and pastries there were begging to be bought, but somehow we resisted the temptation.

We drove to Gulf Harbour on the Whangaparaoa peninsular to check out the boat times for our trip to Tiritiri Matangi tomorrow. Not a very pleasant place, just miles of housing, strip malls and industrial estates. We turned back to Orewa and found a motel by the sea to spend our last two nights in.

Oh the flying milk! As we were driving through Whangaparaoa, we came across a milk lorry in a side road surround by cartons of milk that had obviously come flying out of the unsecured side door of his truck, there was milk everywhere.