Location

Havelock North is a small town in the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zealand. We know it for a few reasons namely vineyards and Te Mata Peak. This was our first time housesitting in the area and we really got to explore a bit. We were actually situated out of town in a rural area called Waimarama, or as we were later told the “Beverly Hills of Hawke’s Bay”!

Pets/House

The house was located on a lifestyle block that was carved out of the farm around us. It was a nice modern home with lovely views of the surrounding hills and paddocks. We enjoyed watching the cows do their daily migration to the bottom paddock. We never knew cows could run so fast.

We had the pleasure of looking after a very sweet spoodle called Indie. She was very well behaved and had such a soft yet excitable personality. Her favourite place to hangout was on the couch watching over the front lawn for magpies. If any were brave enough to land on the lawn she would run outside as fast as she could and speed across, barking to scare them away—this would happen multiple times a day! Indie’s favourite place to go for a walk was at the beach. She loved chasing her ball and would completely ignore all other dogs as the ball was the only thing that mattered to her. Whenever she got too hot from running she would circle to the ocean and flop down on her belly in the shallows as the waves splashed over her.

In late March there were Red Rain warnings that Metservice issued. Given Hawkes bay was hit by a pretty big cyclone a few years prior (Cylcone Gabrielle which caused a large slip on the property) everyone was both concerned yet prepared. The homeowners smartly had a generator and being on rain water we were ready to wait out the storm. It came and went without much incident. 3 weeks later however another storm arrived. Much the same as last time we were prepared and all went well until we lost wifi. Problematically we didn’t have reception either so we were in the dark! We found some reception up on the hill so sent messages out to let everyone know all was ok and once it cleared we went out to town to get a sim for a different company that had better coverage in the area. Funnily according to the internet company the error in the lines wasn’t related to the storm just a coincidence.

What we did

While we were there we had a few things on our bucket list. First was Te Mata Peak and going there for sunrise. Were were at the perfect time of year to do a sunrise as it was just before daylight savings so the sun wasn’t rising till around 7:30am which was lucky for our sleep! We got there in time and sat on the rocks watching the sun rise over the sea and light up the world, very nice and recommended.

There were still more things for us to see in the area! Like a very funky dam that makes Maraetotara Falls. They are steeped in history built by inmates in the 1930s for a now defunct hydro-electric plant. It was tempting to jump from the top yet given it was cold and the water had algae problems we didn’t go in the water at all. A hairy walk on a slippery concrete ledge takes you down to the bottom of the falls (where the photo was taken from).

To walk the dog we would go Ocean beach. A lovely walk along the sand with a ball thrower for Indie which was very satisfying. On some of the walks there were surfers “way out back” and we watched them for some time to see them catch a good wave.