We made the best of it and headed out to Thames on the Coromandel Peninsular, which is where all the Aucklanders go for their hols (it's about 1 1/2 hours drive from the city). It's a stunning place, lots of mountains and a road which runs along the coast past some stunning and deserted beaches. In a previous trip I took the car over a mountain road which crossed the peninsular - went around 20km across a dirt track high over the mountains and didn't see another soul for the entire journey.
We've not exactly timed things very well as we've managed to get in two winters this year - however so far we've been surprised how mild it is. Lots of sun and temps rarely dropping below 16c or so. Plenty of rain though, and boy does it rain! It tends to come in heavy bursts and then you get spells of bright sunshine in between, so not too bad at all.
When we were in Thames we had a look at some showhomes from a couple of building companies. We're looking into the possibility of building our own home when the time comes. Goodness knows when that will be, though, as exchange rates are the lowest they've been in about five years, and still falling.
One of the companies whose show homes we visited today were Lockwood. We've visited another showhome village of theirs in Auckland, and we were really impressed with the build quality and just the general 'feel' of their homes as the interiors are made entirely of wood. They're not cheap though (big surprise there) so if we DO decide to go for one we'll need to start saving up! Our favourite design at the moment is the Tarras, but we like the Milan too.
The Coromandel in Winter!
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