Today was a day to just hang and chill at the beach. Taupo Bay is a beautiful little sandy beach with a great place to swim in the ocean. The waves were small (1 to 2 feet) so it was not going to be great surfing.
I called John the house manager to come over and give us the key to where all the surf boards and kayaks were stored. Got to have toys!
Jason, Cynthia, and I went out for a morning swim. I could actually swim! The shoulder felt pretty good, a bit weak, but the motion was comfortable. I used my little boogie boarding fins to help aid in my slow progress.
John showed up and chatted with us for awhile and gave us the key to stuff. We took out some of the various kayaks and surfboards. I don’t think they had been used in a million years. The surfboard had so little wax on it, it was almost impossible to even paddle on it. The surf kayak didn’t have a leash, so you had to chase it to shore every time you fell out. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.
It was a gorgeous sunny day, so we all just relaxed about the house and on the deck which had a nice big umbrella to keep us from getting fried to a crisp.
Around 1, we headed out to Mangonui to get some food and supplies. It’s about a 20 minute drive from our house. We also wanted to see if we could get a leash for the surfboard, some wax, and a real boogie board.
Mangonui was a cute little fishing town that looked quite nice. We didn’t see a sporting goods store immediately, so Jason parked the behemoth and we walked around to see if we could find it. I saw an information office, so I wanted to go talk to them to see if there were any hikes in the Kauri tree forest that were open. Evidently, there has been a big dieback on the Kauri forest due to a disease and they have all but shut down access to them forever. Yet another testament to the immense damage we causing to our home we call Earth.
We determined there was no sporting good store in Mangonui, but there was one in Cooper’s Beach just down the road. I ran into the tourist information office to get information. The lady was about as uninformative as you could possibly be. Sigh. I did spot the Mangonui fish market, world famous mind you, and suggested we get fresh fish for dinner. Everyone agreed. We would come back and get it after our journey to Cooper’s Beach.
In Cooper’s Beach we found a sporting good store, a liquor store, and a 4 Square Market all right next to each other. Yeah! They had a leash and surf wax, but no boogie board. Boo!
We loaded up on all our supplies and headed back to the fish market. I was sure it would be great. We thought we would get some shrimp. We walked in and it looked more like a restaurant and there was very little fish displayed in the cases. Hmmm. I asked if she had shrimp. She said I could order a basket of fried shrimp. What about fresh shrimp? Nope. So we got some Lemon fish and Hapakua. It was a terrible fish market. Not sure what it is world famous for but maybe for being a crappy fish market?
We headed back to Taupo Bay and hung out for the rest of the day. I was reading a great book called “Where the Crawfish Sing.” We watched the goings on in Taupo Bay, including the dude launching his fishing boat. It was impressive. He clearly had done it a few times. I would definitely own a boat if I lived here.
Susanne and I went out for an afternoon swim as the temperature had reached a warm enough level for her. I took out the surf kayak. I saw a good wave setting up, got into position and caught the wave. Woohoo! I didn’t lean back far enough and nose dived the thing and got dumped out. No worries. I had a leash now and would not have to chase it all the way back into shore. It tightened and then suddenly had no tension on it. What? Then I saw pieces of foam floating on the water while the kayak motored toward shore without me. My leash was firmly attached to the front of the boat which now was no longer part of the boat. The plastic was so rotten, it had just ripped off the boat with very little effort. Doh. So much for surf kayaking.
We had dinner and watched the full moon rising over the water. Gorgeous. It was a very nice beach day.
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