A Call for Action

Easter brought us a couple of days off work, a long weekend, and the excuse for another trip away. The only problem was that all the predictions, both professional and office based, pointed to a wet weekend. We thought about taking a ferry to ‘Waiheke Island’, but doubted the entertainment depth of such a place could withstand poor weather. So, we hesitated and deliberated. We played with ideas of places to visit and then discounted each of them for reasons centred on the forecast. Best just stay local, do nothing, and enjoy a relaxing time. Yeah well, we should’ve learned by now that no matter what the predictions are, if you have a plan, just do it. 'Good Friday' arrived, the grey sky turned to blue, the wind died down, and the sun shone supreme. We’d been tricked again, and unfortunately nobody else had. All accommodation on ‘Waiheke’ was now booked up, and barely a single hire car remained in Auckland. Even our secondary plans of being proactive and fixing things around the home were flummoxed as we discovered that every store in the city was closed – except of course the souvenir stores, but they’d be open after a nuclear holocaust with only cockroaches for customers.

Good Friday and the Saturday right after dissappeared in a blink of proactive intentions & further indeciveness. It wasn’t until Easter Sunday before our plans had materialised to anything resembling an escape from Auckland.
Once the formalities and a couple of hundred kilometres were out the way, we’d arrived in our hire car at the ‘Kai Iwi Lakes’ just north of Dargaville. It took roughly 3 hours to cover the distance, and yet the first drops of rain didn’t touch our windscreen until we approached the car park of our destination. A few drops soon became a deluge capable of extinguishing the fires of hell, and when we left the safety of the car, the ground was a mirror for the sky. The following couple of hours were a glorious contrast of threatening dark clouds and divine moments of illumination that provided some beautiful views and worrying walks.

On the way home, we stopped on the North Shore of Auckland to grab some dinner. Perhaps it was because we hadn’t spent as much money as we’d originally intended, or maybe it was because our journey had been long and the cupboard at home was bare. Whatever the reasons, it was wasn’t something to debate about. Decisive action would now feature firmly on our menu.