First Weekend with Polly - Day 1, Coromandel Peninsula

It's hard to believe it was exactly one month ago today that we picked up Mark's mom, Polly, from the airport in Auckland and got on the road east (after a more thorough tour of the Auckland airport and surrounding suburbs than planned) to the Coromandel Peninsula on the way to a beach house lent to us by one of Mark's hospital colleagues.

We stopped at the beach on the way and were amazed at the beautiful and intact offerings of shells. Then we took a brief turn onto a gravel road to visit the highly recommended Rapaura Watergardens, which were well worth the short drive off the main road for the flowers, fountains, water falls, and really good lunch.

The whole fried flounder Mark and I shared for lunch - dusted with chickpea flour and ras-el hanout and served with ginger-spiked carrot salad.

Continuing our way down the peninsula, the views were magnificent.The kids were amused by another water-related destination, Waterworks in Coromandel Town, with lots of creative water-powered sculptures, ziplines to fly down, and odd bulletin boards papered with Internet jokes -- some of which were actually quite funny.

The lady told us they had six alpacas. We thought she said they had a six-hour package. We do speak the same language but understanding isn't always easy.

As dusk fell, we hit Cathedral Cove.

And caught the sunset as we made it back to our car - and headed to the house down in Mount Maunganui. Days like this call for the sign, below, seen at Rapaura Gardens.