Whangarei and Ruakaka

Thursday I visited Sien van der Veeken, she is the lady I met at Schiphol during the delayed departure. She lives very close to the Whangarei Rugby field, and she showed me around town. Whangarei is one of the biggest cities north of Auckland.

Mrs van der Veeken is a world champion in athletics at the master games in Finland. I will post a picture in which you can see her with all her medals.


We visited the Whangarei Falls and the war memorial, which is build on top of a mountain and has a spectacular view. On thursday evening  we were invited for a genuinie Kiwi BBQ at her daughters house. Her grandson Joel is an expert diver and he catches crayfish with his bare hands an other fish by harpoon. It was a lovely meal, with really nice company.

On friday my trip continued to Ruakaka which is 30km south of Whangarei, to visit Adriaan & Ryan Strydom. I met Adriaan at the B&B in Auckland, at that time his wife was in the hospital giving birth to their second son (Keegan). Vaugh is their oldest son (3 years old) he is a real nice energetic boy. He explained parts of rugby to me, and he also explained that South Africa has won the tri-nations tournament, and



Yesterday Adriaan showed me the sites around Ruakaka and we visited the local pub in the evening. BBQ'ing is part of the New Zealand lifestyle and Adriaan has a huge gas operated BBQ which replaces his Weber coal BBQ. Honestly the Chicken was superb, and I also learned a nice recipe for asparagus bread. Will try that the next time we have a BBQ in the Netherlands.


Today we went to the visitor's center at the Ruakaka Oil Refinery, this is where Adriaan works as a fire fighter. The refinery is one of the few in the world to be able to process lower grade crude oil. Actually the instructional video was really interesting and to me the factory resembles DSM/SABIC in limburg. But instead of producing plastics their main product is fuel, diesel and kerosine.

 

To be honest all the coastal scenery i have seen so far in New Zealand is fantastic. And lot's of kiwi's own their own boats and all out doors activities including fishing are part of their lifestyle.