A friend of mine owns a beach house in Ngunguru, a small town in Northland region. Ngunguru is neighboring to many beautiful beaches like, Whales Bay, Sandy Bay, Whangaumu Bay, Motapouri Bay. Ngunguru itself is a lovely coastal village nearby the estuary of Ngunguru river, located on North East of Whangarei 20 minutes away by car, facing to Pacific Ocean. The beaches in this area are featured by their soft white sand, breath-taking blue ocean and secluded natural landscape. The tide has been sounding loudly since ancient days, but people striding into them never feel the tidal sound noisy but only feel being embraced by the limitless serenity, peacefulness, and friendliness of locals.My friend offered us a free one week stay at their bach, named The Beach House, in Ngunguru. She allowed me to invite our children or friends to join in this late summer holiday to experience the relaxing nature of a beach house stay.
We invited our friends, Henry and Helen. As if all the factors were predestinedly right, they said yes without any hesitation. The weather forecast gave an optimally fine weather within the 4 days of our selected period from 24/2 to 27/2. So the two couples of old fellow excitedly planed on the upcoming activity, shopping list was determined, travelling routs were studied, points of interests were researched, indoor activities of a one hour guided meditation and Qi Gong exercise were scheduled, and etc, just like the excitement we always had in our primary school days when the school master announced an out of school walking trip. Helen said: "let's make the theme of this holiday The Journey of Body, Mind, Spirit". "Yeah, cool!", I responded.The day we had been looking forward to was up, as was originally scheduled in the GPS borrowed from Chenny, we set out on the 173 km of journey at exactly 10:45am heading toward North. The sun was brilliant, the breeze was comfortable, and the traffic was good. It is the last few days of the ending summer. All the conditions promised a perfect bach stay to be experienced.
We had a break at the i-site located on the out skirt of Whangarei city, and by the way had our lunch at a Cafe in the same building which the i-site is in. The car park was almost full. Touring buses, vans, small cars filled up all parking slots. Most of the people here looked like tourists. We were the only few Asians.
Our Captain, Helen, proposed that our sightseeing activity should start right away from there though all our provisions were on board and we were still 20 minutes of driving away. Yet we agreed, and I set the destination to Whangarei city centre in the GPS, so there we went under the audio guide of the GPS.
GPS lead us arrive the city centre where is right located by the yacht harbor. Countless yachts anchored all over the water as far as your eyes can reach. They are waiting for their owners to sail them out into the sea when the next weekend comes. There were quite a few galleries, a proof that many artists were living in this region. We also visited the local museum. The living style of the people here can be reflected from the exhibited objects. Quite a few were knitting wares, sailing gears, homemade fruit jam.
Jean and I love ice cream, so we took rest at a water front Cafe and ordered 4 double cones. They were rich in chocolate flavor. with the bright sun shining in the mid afternoon, the peaceful harbor view, gliding sea gulls, mild breeze, and the combined effect from all of these beautiful holiday ingredients really putting me to dreaming with my eyes staring at the nothingness in the air. The local residents are very friendly. Within the walking around there for just one and half hours, we were offered three times by different smiley passer-by locals to shoot all 4 of us photos so that we don't always miss one out from the pictures. Time to move on to the bach.
Jean and I were allocated the master's room which faces East and got the vastest sea view than other rooms. We had the healthy dinner which complied with the pre-themed principles of Body, Mind, Spirit. The first dinner in the beach house was simply vegetarian. and the following two dinners were similar. These simple but healthy meals may not be tasty but good to develop contentedness, and keep the 3 Highs, high blood pressure, high blood glucose level, high cholesterol , away from us.
What the activities we scheduled for the second and third day was breakfast, Dynamic Qi Gong, guided meditation, lunch, sight seeing selected points of interest.
The places we had been to were indeed breathtaking. They are naturally beautiful. So beautiful that with my best English language skill I can only use words such as "Wow! look at this...", "awesome", "unbelievable", therefore, I'll let the shared video clips about the bays, beaches and coast line available on the internet to help me with the post-holiday presentation.
As to our indoor activities apart from the Qi Gong exercise and meditation, I personally did a one hour dawn meditation, and waiting for the sunrise view to display its magic of coloring the clouds and sky. Henry knew I discovered the stunning sunrise view on the previous morning, got up early on the next morning with his camera of 32 Gega storage to record the whole process of the sunrise in video.The house owner is a book lover, she must be interested in spiritual aspects of life that I saw a good collection of books in this category on the book shelf in the lounge. During the residual free times here and there, I stuck myself to The Journey by Brandon Bays about her experience starting from her being diagnosed growing cancerous tumor found in her belly through her journey of reviewing a deeply buried memory since her childhood, and eventually got her tumor softened and shrank to nothing without a surgery removal.
Time is never stopping or slowing down for anyone of us, and it seems to move forward particularly faster when you are having a good time. The three nights spent at The Beach House were over, and I am sitting in front of the computer writing some notes about the first time ever beach house stay experience in my life.
--The end
