Day 19 - Rotorua to Auckland

Special Edition: Blog by Josh

Today is the day Daniel has been waiting for the whole trip (and perhaps the last four years!). We are leaving Rotorua and heading to Auckland, the home of the Padrutt Family whose house, in Adelaide we now reside in. We had a decent drive to Auckland and after packing lunches and letting Josh pack the car, we headed off around ten in the morning which made for a lazy morning.

The drive went fairly quickly, especially because we ate lunch in the car and we only stopped a few times for Squirrel, our affectionate nickname for Daniel to stretch his legs and once for Mazz who saw a shop where she could continue her search for a throw rug. Once we arrived in Auckland, DJ started to get excited as we saw signs for the Padrutts suburb, Browns Bays. When we turned onto their street, Daniel started to get teary. We parked just outside their house and started the long walk down their drive way.

Once Daniel saw Michael he ran and gave him a big hug. It took a moment for Michael to recognise Daniel as he looked similar to one his friends from school from a distance. We all said our hellos and settled into their house. It was good to see them again since they hadn't seen each other for a really long time, it was also really kind of them to house us in their really big house. We had soon made our sleeping arrangements, not long after arriving there: Paul and Mazz were in a flat out the front while Daniel slept in Michael's room and Josh slept in Lara's bedroom, the youngest child’s.

After we had chilled for a while we went for a walk down to the beach where the suburb gets its name from. The path to the beach involved going up and down many times. All the kids came prepared to go swimming, even Josh* did but he didn't end up going in the water. The parents and Josh (the Elder) waited for the kids next to a playground which the kids eventually played on because it was really too cold to go swimming at the beach.

On the way home we decided to stop for an ice-cream, For dinner we were treated to spaghetti bolognese with salad, which was brilliant, compliments to the chef. After dinner, the kids, all filed off to bed at their bedtimes, with Daniel following Michael. The adults and Josh (the Elder) stayed up until late talking, and catching up as it had been four long years since they had seen each other, leaving no time for them to do the blog and keeping their readers in suspense until the next day when they would get their eldest child to write their blog for them.

*The Padrutts also have a son named Josh who shall henceforth and forever more be known as Josh the Younger as he is a few years younger while Josh Sakovits will be Josh the Elder, so that you, the readers of this blog may be able to better distinguish between them.