Our Rotary student, Beto had a very traumatic morning last Sunday. He was woken with the news that Chile had suffered a 8.8 earthquake. He managed to contact the Chilean Embassy in Wellington, who told him his city Ranagcua, had been devastated, and there was no contact in or out of the city. It was a long wait on Sunday morning until Beto had a call from his father. All his family were safe, but every window in their house was broken and his grand parent’s apartment floor had fallen in. Using Facebook and Skype, Beto has managed to track down all his friends (who were partying when the earthquake struck at 3.34 am!) It is a very difficult time to be so far away from his family at such a time.
February is the month to get out and ride around lovely Hawkes Bay on your bike. As the rain seems to have gone, for now, it is a great time to do this. I managed to fit in a 20 km ride today, over to Hastings and back, via the wonderful new Crosses Road cycleway. I feel so much safer on this new track, as the traffic is a safe distance away, not like the treacherous trip down Crosses Road before the cycle way was built. There were times I felt physically terrified cycling on that road, by the behaviour of the motorists. I can remember looking in to the distance to see a car thundering down the road, heading directly for me, passing another car at about 120kph! The road is now only 80 kph and the cyclists are well away. Three councillors, Anne Wilson-Hunt, Wayne Bradshaw (also from Havelock North) and I are the only councillors, so far, who have registered for the bikewise challenge, as part of the HDC team. We are challenging the other councils in Hawkes Bay to ride as much as possible during February, this mayoral challenge needs every member, both staff and councillors to register and ride! The HBRC have the highest number of councillors participating so far. 11% of the HDC have clocked up some km so far, a total of 1960 Km. We will need many more if we are to move above last year’s third place, behind HBRC and Gisborne District Council!
Hawkes bay to
Havelock North residents are heartily sick of the mindless vandalism by the local young drinkers leaving the Village in the early hours of the morning. Often I hear people blaming drinkers, who come in from other places, like Napier and Hastings, however I find it most unlikely that these are the “hooligans” that are responsible for continuously breaking the flowering cherry trees outside our house. These trees have been replaced four times by HDC and last weekend, the surviving tree was broken in half! Such a waste of rate-payers money, the youthful vandals’ parents are paying for their childrens stupidity.
A cherry tree in Duart Road broken yet again!
Last weekend the engineer and I attended Kiri and Rick’s wedding on the beach at Whangara, in front of the world famous marae, where “Whale Rider” was filmed. Rick is the son of an old family friend, while Kiri has family ties to the Marae. They had been planning their wedding for over two and a half years and sadly it rained most of the day. There was a break in the weather while their vows were exchanged on the beach. The tide was coming in rapidly, but all went extremely well. All 200 guests retired to the marae, where they were welcomed on and then the rain settled in for the rest of the night. 
We took our Rotary student from Chile, Beto (who will be attending Havelock North High School and looking forward to school starting) with us to Whangara. Last week we showed him the “Whale Rider” DVD so he was familiar with the Paikea legend and the Whangara area. Beto had a wonderful at the wedding, seeing Maori protocol for the first time and he especially enjoyed the haka.
The Engineer and I drove to Gisborne last weekend to spend a week or so camping at the new camping ground at Tatapouri Beach. It was an idyllic setting that very few people have discovered yet. Sadly the weather wasn’t kind, but we persevered with activites, walking up the Te Kuri walkway
on the hills behind Gisborne with amazing views over the bay
. This is part of our preparation for the Milford track at Easter. During our week up there, our Rotary student, Alberto (Beto for short)
came to stay. He chose New Zealand for rugby and is determined to improve his rugby skills while he is here. He also was brave enough to slide down the rock slide at Rere, 50 km inland from Gisborne. Luckily for the Engineer and I, a few tourists arrived and kept Beto company on the slide so we didn’t have to do it with him!