RECENTLY
We made a road trip to Tauranga on Saturday for a catch up with a close friend. Had a little scare with my car doing this mega shake as though I was loosing a wheel on the motorway. Went back to the place I bought my last set of tyres (Bridgestone Adrenalin RE001) and they checked the tyres and the wheel balancing was only out by 10 grams. When I bought those tyres brand new and I paid for a wheel alignment at the same time and there really shouldn’t have been anything wrong. All we could bring it down to is driving over some thick clumpy mud which stuck to my tyre. I needed peace of mind before I would have driven any further. With our little detour and delay to ensuring my car was 100% for a road trip we were off and away again. It gave me a fright though as I’ve never had anything like those happen; also relieved as I wasn’t alone when it happened. It took us about two and a half hours to reach our destination, plus taking the wrong off ramp because of excitement to see a “Harbour Bridge” in Tauranga. You can barely tell your going over the harbour bridge, I didn’t realise until we drove over it for the 3rd time. Considering the bad weather, the travel was really good as there weren’t many cars on the road.
After arrival we drove a subaru sti convoy over to Mount Maunganui for a meal of eggs benedict and savoury french toast at Astrolab. Beautiful restaurant & bar with fire place and out door seating. Definitely going back the next time we make a road trip to Tauranga. I hope to stay longer next time. We’ll probably be back in a few months; it’s kinda dependable as I want to go down to New Plymouth for a week when the weather is warmer.
The drive back from Tauranga was insane! Sideways rain with window wipers of full bore & I my following beacon turned off the road. So I was leading about 5 cars through winding roads in pitch black of the night. It was awful, with cars coming towards you with the glare and the darkness. The only guide that kept me on the road were the cats eyes in the middle of the road. I even said that if the weather doesn’t get any better I am going to stop in the next town. But alas, the closer we got to Auckland, better the weather got for a change. I felt like I deserved the good weather after navigating my way through the war of the weather gods. I had relief when we reached Bombay for a petrol top up and I could stretch, I had a head ache from the intense driving concentration. An hour later we got home and stopped off for booze and dinner on the way. I was asleep within about 2 hours of getting home, such an exhausting super fun trip.
We have started shopping for a house to buy. We don’t want to buy anything super expensive as we just want a comfortable home for us to live in for a few years until we can sell the property (in theory), making a profit so we can be a bit more choosey for our next property. We have found a few places within our price range in really good areas with good schools and convenient shopping etc. We’ve got meetings with our mortgage broker booked, so I guess we’ll see what happens from there. Interest rates at the moment are also insane, it’s not worth getting a mortgage because of this. But at the end of the day, we need somewhere to live. If we can get a good deal then there is no reason not to. On an upside, we pretty much own everything which you need to put in a house, its just a matter of finding one!
I got an A+ for my first assessment for my marketing paper. I am super happy about this as the questions I was given seemed really vague so I just took a stab in the dark and hoped for the best. Plus, I can’t say marketing is the most exciting topic. But hey, it has to be done. It’s really difficult to balance my life to fit everything in that I need to do, but I’ll get there.