We drove to Nordfjord to visit our friends at the farm that we visited on our travels around 6 years ago! The drive was through snow as well as a lot of tunnels and we got to see a bunch of new places we hadn’t seen!
On the way, we stopped at a bakery in Rødberg for a cinnamon bun and then we carried on to the farm.
We arrived and had some lunch and some coffee, as is tradition, and we caught up with the family who now have an extra child than they did last time which was lovely to see and amazing to meet them.
We were chatting about badgers being a problem and of course, one appeared! We had to chase it down and trap it.
We walked through the forest and cleared it up, clearing up rubbish and also branches that are in the way. The plan is for them to make it into a field that can be used.
We ended the night with some food and a chat. We got to sleep in the cabin we slept in last time which we loved!
Day 2
We had some breakfast and then went down to where the lambs and sheep live to stack a bunch of firewood/logs so they can dry and are stored for the winter. We love doing this so this was great!
We had a coffee break, as you should, it was really nice to sit and chat with them whenever we had a chance.
We needed to move some wood planks from a trailer onto the floor so the trailer could be used again. There were a lot of planks but we worked with Martin to get it sorted.
We loved the opportunity to feed the lambs, too! Some had to be bottle fed, so it was a super nice experience and something new!
For dinner, we had a big roast with a big lamb/sheep leg which was slow cooked. Kim obviously didn’t eat it but Curtis did and it was excellent! The vegetables were a delicious side too.
We needed to make a fence to put around the new sheep field, so we helped to get that done after dinner, which was nice and relaxing.
Day 3
We started with breakfast, as expected and then right when we were getting ready for getting some work done, there was unfortunately a crazy incident with a stabbing in the local town.
This meant that we needed to be vigilant just in case and also the owners of the farm went to see if they could get their kids from school and to see if they can help at all.
The craziness went on for a while and once the evening hit, we walked around and checked all the old fences for holes or trees sitting on them before moving the sheep to their new field!
We had a beer in the sheep field once they’d moved and it was a very nice feeling to see our work come to fruition.
We finished our time there with a curry night! Martin made some really good homemade curry and we even had a visit from one of their friends who sat and had some food with us as well.
We had about 1/2 a day left after this, which will be covered in the next post!
We loved visiting the family again and we can’t wait to head back, see even more farm improvements and help them out.
We’re back! Hello! We went on a little trip to Sunshine Coast for Curtis’ birthday. You can read about it here.
On Tuesday 14th September, in the evening, we drove out to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry out to Sunshine Coast. Whilst it is not an island, it’s technically connected, there’s no other way to get there without a boat, so we took the ferry.
The ferry arrived late, but that didn’t make much difference to us, other than the fact we were hungry!
There weren’t many people on the boat, so it was quick and easy to get ourselves some food. We ate that and then the ride was pretty much over. (it’s only 40 minutes).
We drove off the boat and drove on to our first accomodation, which was a cute little cabin!
Here’s a low quality video of the cabin!
When we arrived, the cabin was incredibly cold as the windows were open, but after a bit of time with the fire on it got nice and toasty. We arrived fairly late, so once we got settled we watched a little bit of TV before sleeping.
Here’s another low quality video of the cabin!
Day 2
We woke up in the awesome cabin and drove down to Gibsons for a spot of breakfast.
We got a breakfast bagel each from a cafe there. The staff were wonderful (and one was British!) which made it a very nice experience.
Once we had our breakfast, we had heard that people were filming down the street for a holiday film! We went down to check that out, but not much was happening at the time, other than there being some fake snow on the floor.
We walked around Gibsons for a bit as there was a nice little marina area and the sun was shining!
After walking for a bit, we found a park to go to for a hike/walk!
We drove to Cliff Gilker Park where it said there were waterfalls and hiking trails, which sounded perfect.
The walk was through the forest with nice big trees and some really nice little wooden bridges!
We saw the waterfall, but it wasn’t really much of a waterfall, but still peaceful.
We walked around here for quite a while, mostly to just find all the bridges…we love bridges!
Once we left here, we drove to a petting zoo to let some animals, but unfortunately it was closed on that day, so we turned around and drove to something nearby that we found, called Robert’s Creek Pier.
Robert’s Creek is a small town with some nice little buildings that we looked at and when we went down to the pier we nearly got blown over it was so windy!
Wind!
We drove back to the cabin and had a look online for some places to get food and also a look for other things to do whilst we were in the area.
We eventually found a place for dinner, which was a Mexican place. Luckily, they were able to seat us once we got there (they were very busy!) And we grabbed ourselves some pretty tasty Mexican food!
We went back to the cabin and watched a bit of TV and relaxed.
Whilst relaxing, we heard some noises outside, so we checked and sure enough, it was a BEAR! We saw him right next to our cabin trying to get at the bins, but we think he scared himself away when he knocked over the bin.
It was our first time seeing a bear in the wild and it was pretty large and right outside!
Day 3 – Curtis’ Birthday!
We woke up, got ready and left the cabin to grab some breakfast.
We went to a cafe (after a bit of back and forth between two) and managed to get a seat. It was pretty small and busy!
We had to wait 45 minutes for our food, which seemed pretty long, and when we got the food it was…Alright. It looked good but wasn’t incredible. Curtis had a smoked salmon and dill cream eggs benedict whilst Kim had a breakfast bowl.
We left here and tried to go to a few cool looking spots with nice views, hikes and waterfalls, but they all seemed to be closed for some reason!
We ended up finding a park near the new cabin we were moving to, so we sat there for a bit and stared into the water.
We checked in to the new cabin and it was not quite as we thought. It looked like a cabin, but was pretty large. It was quite dark and just not as good as we hoped. But it did look cool!
Looks cool outside, right?
We relaxed for a bit once we got in. The weather had started to deteriate, which we knew was going to happen, so we prepared to just hunker down and do very little.
Kim found a really nice brewery called Batch44 and we headed there for some drinks and dinner. Kim also found out there was a quiz, so we entered that and didalright! We weren’t last, which is a win!
We headed back to the cabin and got some really good sleep.
Day 4
It was raining all day, so we just slept and stayed in, watching some TV and playing card games.
We went and got pizza for dinner. Nothing fancy but a bit of a tradition for lazy days!
There was a large wind/rain storm which blew over a power line! This caused us to have an outage and, as the power line was laying on the only bit of road in/out of the town, we were stuck in the dark!
We were able to get some candles from a neighbour and we spent the night playing cards and chatting. It was kinda nice, in a way.
We didn’t get too cold and headed to bed. We were however awoken around 02:00 when the power came back on! But we were glad that was able to get sorted.
Day 5 – The Final Day
We woke up and got some breakfast at a diner style place and then looked for something to do before we needed to catch our boat.
We found somewhere called secret beach (it was sign posted, so not very secret!) And we had a wander around on the beach and the logs that were on there.
Pretty nice place!
Kim found a nice rope swing and had some fun on that!
We took the ferry home and drove back. It seemed to take far less time!
We got home and made some dinner and then it was time for Curtis to play hockey. He’s finished his 3rd game now and is really enjoying being back out there on the ice.
Curtis has a goal and two assists already, all of which came from the last game!
And there we have it!
That was our sunshine coast trip. We hope you enjoyed having a blog to read again. We had some fun times and we were excited to share it with you.
Maybe we’ll have some other fun stuff coming up at some point, but we hope everyone is well.
We were up at a decent time to call a few garages to get them to have a look at our car.
Most garages were full, but Josh & Danielle were able to suggest a great garage for us who weren’t full either!
We arrived at the garage and the guy was really nice. He was able to do the diagnostics on the car and told us what the issue was. Luckily, it seems to be a false alarm, so we were able to go on our way with no worries.
We got back in the car, in the rain, and drove to McDonald’s to get a spot of brekkie.
We then drove 3.5 hours up north to Kerikeri, which is quite far up north.
We got to Kerikeri and spoke to the receptionist who was lovely and got us settled in and gave us a tour.
We are sleeping in a cabin with another person, but we are in our own room.
We went to the shop to get our food for a week which is just 1 minute down the road.
Once we got back home, we had a chat with another helper here for a while and then had a walk around the land here. There are some pigs here, too, who were very happy to see us!
We also saw some sheep/goats (we aren’t sure yet).
We walked back and made some dinner. We had chicken pesto pasta…throwing it back to the old-school traveling days.
We sat and watched some TV and went to bed at a good time so we are awake tomorrow morning when we get up to do some work here at the resort.
We got onto the boat and got right into bed in our cabin, planning to get to sleep as quick as possible.
Some of us slept well but Curtis only got about 30 minutes!
We were woken at 05:30 and had to grt up and ready to leave the ferry.
We got into the car and down the ramp into Wellington fairly quickly. Curtis wanted to take everyone to a cafe he went to in Wellington whilst there for work as they had humongous coffees and excellent food.
We arrived at the cafe and it looked a bit different, so it was already odd! We got XXL coffees, which are rightfully huge, and then looked at the menu, which was again different.
The XXL coffee (with a pepper shaker for size comparison)
We got some fairly adequate food from here and ate it, but it was no where near as good as Curtis remembered and had clearly been taken over by new owners.
We left here and got on the road towards Napier, where we are spending one night.
Once we eventually got to the AirBnB, noone was home and we couldn’t get hold of them, so we had to go out.
We went down to the beach where Kim had a swim in the very cold see and we took in the incredibly hot 35° sun.
We went back to the house and our host was in, so we met him and got aquainted with the house.
Curtis fell asleep for an hour or so, and so did Tom.
Kim and Tom went to the shop to get a little bit of food for dinner and then we sat out on the balcony looking at the tremendous views.
We plan to sleep early as noone really slept too much last night.
Mr & Mrs Hale 