Recently we had a child free (yay!) weekend away at Omaha, a little settlement on the north-east coast, about an hour drive from Auckland. We’re doing the half marathon/10k events there on the first Sunday in December, so wanted to take a look around the place first.
I rented us a little apartment in the “new” side of the development, which is near the start/finish point, altho really nothing is too far away here. The furniture was a mix of contemporary and antique, including a rocking horse that I’d have loved as a child.
The top row of photos is from the beach at Omaha looking east – the shadow island is Little Barrier. On good days you can apparently see it clearly and further out to Aotea or Great Barrier. I know – to think this wasn’t a good day???
The middle row is just a couple of things that caught my eye at Matheson’s Bay, which is on the road to Leigh. Si learnt to snorkel and spearfish here when he was in the Army Air Corps unit; it was once the home to a thriving boat building business. There’s lots of rock pools down past that twisty Pohutukawa and we enjoyed exploring them.
The nearest town with full services is Matakana; full of gorgeous food, heritage buildings and wonderful people. The war memorial had been part of a service for VE day on the 11th and still had all the wonderful poppies; and this church still has working bells that call the faithful to service on Sunday morning (bottom row).
I’m ready to head back after the crappy “spring” weather we’ve had for the last few days!
sewscrapmuse 
looks wonderful and peaceful kind of place – never been in that area at all. And yes weather went to rather middle winter the other night, I was scuttling around here looking for another blanket and I was almost tempted to get out the heaters! And then the next night humid and warm.. And now out West is doing it’s very best to throw us 4 seasons in one day…
Yep, yesterday I pulled M out of tag bc of the weather warning… Got home and it was clear and dry. Yet at work only 15k away the drains couldn’t keep up!
Good job getting away without kids! The place looks lovely. If it didn’t take a year and a day to get to New Zealand from here, I would visit. In the meantime I enjoy your photos.
A year saving and a day in flight… Sounds about right
And then we would have to fly all the way back. Ugh.
Apply to stay! We’ve got a list of jobs that need to be filled
LOL
New Zealand is one of the places my husband and I want to visit. I love the names of the towns or cities in NZ. We watch Highway Patrol on Sky and love seeing the breath taking views you see on there. xXx
Look for some other programs then… country calendar, coast New Zealand (same team as UK),… nzonscreen.com/explore has locally made content