Sometimes having a routine can be something to enjoy. For us, it’s part of every day life to have things scheduled in throughout the day, whether that be never starting the day without a coffee, a trip to the gym 3 times a week, or sitting down every evening to write our blog and edit the photos and videos from that day. You could even go as far as calling it tradition, but for us, one of our favourite ‘traditions’ is our monthly date night; well it’s now the last day of February and so far... no date night this month. It’s not because we’re saving money or unorganised or anything else like that - no, it’s because well lately... we’ve just been so busy.
If settling in to a new country and exploring the local area, whilst looking for a job and moving from one location to another and so on isn’t enough, we’re also trying to get our car ready for camping, and that means giving it some much needed TLC. Thursday’s task was getting our gearbox serviced, which meant driving down to Pukekohe (way cheaper then anywhere in Auckland). It’s about an hour drive from Auckland so we made a day of it, stopping at Clarks Beach along the way.
It was perfect beach weather and we were excited to test out our new GoPro dome in the sea... only to our surprise there was no water... The tide had gone out so far it was almost completely out of view, and as a result we were reluctant to stay. We took a walk anyway and eventually came across a beautiful spot to have our lunch - a nice partially shaded area complete with a swing hanging from a tree. We stayed for a while, enjoying the scenery, listening to music and getting some more “work” done, only seeing a couple of people the whole time. It’s a really nice place to spend the afternoon, but we had things to do.
After completing our journey we dropped the car off in a garage and had a look around for another nice place to kill some time. It seems there’s no such Place in Pukekohe, and we in fact ended up sat under another tree, only this time outside a supermarket - not what we had expected to be doing earlier that morning. A quick look around the town later taught us that Pukekohe is basically town built for the automotive industry; almost every building is either a garage, a dealership, or a shop specialising in car parts.
Eventually the phone rang and we returned to the garage to pick up our car. It was still light and so we checked out Hunua Ranges, a nearby regional park with a stunning waterfall just a couple of minutes from the car park. It was the perfect place to sit down and get lost in the ambiance, no noise from traffic, no people, just the sound of water and wildlife all around. Liam jumped at the opportunity to go for a swim in the plunge pool, taking both his phone and the camera with him to capture the moment.
The current was so strong - I tried for a long time to get close to the waterfall and catch it on film from underneath, but it was like swimming on some kind of fast moving water treadmill.... by the time I made it a few metres I would have to stop from pure exhaustion, only to be swept back to my starting point in a couple of seconds. I was trying really hard to get some nice photos of Liam under the waterfall but as you can see he made it impossible because even though he could barely move he still managed to wave his phone around his head all the time. Eventually my body started to go numb and I could feel myself struggling to stay afloat more and more. The fatigue had taken effect, and I was beginning to get in trouble.
The water was cold too, and after around 15 minutes of swimming, Liam had to leave the pool. We figured he had been swimming in the cold water for too long and were glad to have a supply of warm clothes. Even so, it took nearly half an hour of walking for Liam to return to normal temperature. Fair to say it was a lesson learnt.
So if the car park was only a couple of minutes away, where did we walk to?... just off from the car park are a few tracks that will take you all around Hunua Ranges, there’s a lot to offer in this regional park, so it’s possible to spend the entire day here if walking through a forest environment is something you enjoy. The particular track that we picked (the Cossey-Massey loop) takes over 3 hours to walk so we knew we wouldn’t be completing it, but thought we’d check out the start of it anyway. However, we actually walked much further than originally intended, and the sun started to set on us sooner than we anticipated.
There are some really nice sunset views over the tree-tops at various points throughout the track, but we couldn’t stay for long as we didn’t pack torches. Inevitably we got caught out in the dark, and as the night rolled in we found ourselves stumbling through the forest with only our mobile phones as a source of light... an interesting experience but not something we’d recommend.
So that was it then - February had flown past us without giving us the chance to stick to our monthly-date-night-schedule... We had nothing planned for the next day and used the spare time we had to catch up on some editing work, drink coffee, go to the gym and well... you get the picture... but again it was nightfall that brought with it something unexpected. This time though, it was something we WOULD recommend... As mentioned previously, Auckland is filled with outdoor parks and peaceful areas for the public to enjoy. One of which is Silo Park; it goes by day as nothing more than your typical park but with two water silo’s sitting prominently in the middle, at night though it comes alive... as once a week the silo’s are used as a giant screen for a public, and an absolutely free OUTDOOR CINEMA!
When the sun sets the lights come on and Silo Park becomes an area of communal recreation, with music playing, drinks flowing and dozens of people sitting on blankets watching a movie together on the grass. We watched Mission Impossible under the stars and got home late that evening. It was officially March, but if February didn’t have just 28 days, we’d have still been on schedule right? Well, it doesn’t matter - we put the technicalities aside and rested sound in the knowledge that we had stuck to our traditions for another month... sort of.
Up next: The day we lost our GoPro
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