A 5 day break with friends in the Northland

After my workshop finished in Ngaruawahia, Phil and I packed up the car and drove a little over an hour north to Auckland where we met up with our friends Barney and Pat who just arrived from San Francisco that morning and were waiting for us at the BNB we rented in the Ponsonby neighborhood of Auckland.

After a short rest and catch up, we went out on the town for a lovely evening stroll and fabulous dinner celebrating the successful completion of teaching at 7 (out of 8) locations with 5 days of R and R ahead, and being together with friends from home, while being in a saner country far away in the southern hemisphere.

Monday morning, on the recommendation of my kiwi friend Mark, we hopped on a ferry to Waiheke Island.

The weather was gorgeous, with clear skies and a warm breeze making for a lovely 40 minute ride.

After disembarking the ferry, we followed the main road and came across a couple galleries and a music museum with a number of interesting old instruments. The museum attendant said if anyone was a musician they were allowed to play many of the instruments. Since I was with 3 musicians, we spent a bit of time exploring and playing a vibraphone, a small fold up piano from a ship, a foot-powered player piano, a transposing piano, and a couple other more mundane, yet beautiful, vintage pianos and organs.

Waiheke island is actually fairly large, and there are buses you can book to tour it, but we deiced to see how far we’d get walking and eventually jumped on a local bus to go to one of the lovely beaches on the other side.

It was glorious.

After we worked up a good appetite, the 4 of us walked up the road to go to a restaurant called Three Seven Two recommended to us by the woman working in the music museum.

What a fabulous meal!!!

Beautiful, as well as, delicious, fabulous wine, good friends and a stunning beach as a back drop.

Occasionally, there are those days in life that really stand out and stick with you for a long time. This was definitely one of those days.

The next day we all piled in the car, with luggage stacked to the roof, and drove north to my friend Alysn’s house.

We took our time, and made a few side trips off the main highway to explore. One particularly picturesque area was Shakespear Regional Park.

These old twisted tree trunks are so gorgeous.

If anyone watches the shows Brokenwood or 800 words on Acorn TV, this part of New Zealand, just north of Auckland, is where many of the scenes are filmed.

We arrived at Alysn’s late in the afternoon. Alysn Midgelow-Marsden and I first met in 2013, when we taught together in Canberra at the Creative Textiles Show. We also both taught at New Zealand Quilt symposium in 2017, and Phil and I got to spend several wonderful days with Alysn and her husband Brian towards the end of that trip.

Phil, Pat and I, joined Alysn to take the dogs out for some exercise down the road from her house.

What a beautiful spot to play fetch!

After dinner, we all went to the local movie theater for enigma night, where the movie of the evening is a total surprise, and you can also buy a glass of wine to enjoy during the movie. It turned out the movie, Mr Jones, was great! I highly recommend it, it was about a journalist who goes to Moscow on the eve of WWII to investigate Russian propaganda. This series of events was the inspiration for George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and easy on the eyes James Norton from Granchester stars in it.

I’ll end this post with this beautiful view of Alysn’s back yard with a Kereru flying over head. Of course there are more kiwi adventures ahead, so stay tuned…

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I apologize, if you tried the mask pattern link in my last post and received an error message. There was a problem with the file not printing to size and I had to reformat it and upload a new file, so here’s the correct link if you didn’t get it Mask Pattern and Instructions. 

Keep creating,

Judy

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I’d love to spark your creativity at one of these upcoming events:

I’m not sure how many of these events will take place due to impact of the corona virus, but I’ll post cancellations and updates as they occur.

2020

May 27-31 Woodland Ridge Retreat, Menomonie, WI
Tea & Ephemera and Painting Imagery with Textile Paints

Australia!!! Cancelled

Berry, AU- June 27, 28 Berry Quilting Retreat 2 day Tea & Ephemera

Adelaide, AU- July 2, South Australia Quilters Guild Lecture

July 3, 4 Exhibition with the South Australia Quilters

July 10-16 Quilt Encounter 3-day Paint & Printapalooza, 2 day Tea & Ephemera

Brisbane, AU- July 18, 19 Queensland Quilters 2 day Tea & Ephemera

August 11-13 Calico Cutters, West Chester, PA
Tsukineko Inks and Tea & Ephemera

August 31 Color Theory lecture Pioneer Quilters Guild, Loomis, CA

September 26 River City Quilt and Fiber Art Festival, Sacramento, CA Tea & Ephemera

October 18-24 Hudson Valley Quilt Retreat, Greenville, NY
Paint and Printapalooza

ABOUT JUDY
Judy is an artist, explorer, image wrangler, knowledge seeker, instructor, speaker, creative alchemist, and purveyor of inspiration, helping others channel creativity on a daily basis.