Eggbert's Travels

Thursday 21st June

SHE SAID:

I had an interesting trip from Coopers Beach to Mountain View, Auckland.

The rain was non-stop till I saw Auckland city, I had a country road detour around the floods just north of Whangarei. Then I took the coast roads down to the Sculptureum, around 90 minutes north of Auckland.

My lunch stop was at the historic Mangawhai Tavern, but I made 3 attempts to get the the sculpture gardens but every road was closed due to flooding!

I stayed overnight with Jenny, Scott and their daughter Charlotte. I enjoyed the evening with them, eating my first ever vegan dinner.

The main highway cut by flood waters around 20km from Whangarei

Floods across Northlands

Stormy Langs Beach on New Zealand's east coast

Lunch stop

HE SAID:

I dived in and started trying to sort out the music file on my laptop. I have 23,000+ items in that folder, so I needed to put it into some order, then delete duplicates and rubbish I don't want. It is fun to see what is there, but it is also tedious.

That is why I thought I'd treat myself to a dark beer at the Uralla brewery in the afternoon. Heading out after lunch, and after Skyping with Mum, I came across a police Random Breath Test set up on the Uralla outskirts, about 500m from the brewery. So, after warning the few brewery patrons enjoying a winter brew of the RBT, I only had one sip of the new dark ale, as a taster, rather than my planned pint. A pint would have been fine, and I was not worried about blowing over the limit, but it just seemed to be the sensible option. Especially if the beer was so nice that I needed a second one!

The evening was another sport-fest, with AFL, World Cup Soccer, and a Cricket ODI on TV.