Gloria's farewell & the long journey home....

Almost two Saturdays ago, we headed up to Whangarei to farewell our beloved G who has been in Hawaii for almost a week now!! 

Her children had organized a lovely dinner for her & Mell & I were lucky enough to get free passes to join Dad & Jeanette on a trip up North for the evening :)

G's daughter's had done such a great job of decorating & baking cupcakes. The one below was filled with german choc cake icing & was absolutely delish!!

It was so cool to see G surrounded by all her kids & grandkids (she has 11 of them). I actually came home & told Stan that we should really think about having another baby because otherwise we may not end up with too many grandkids - & seeing G with all hers, just looked so cute!!

This was G's brother Brian & a group of those that knew it,

 singing the Church College one little candle/missionary song :)

Bitter sweet to say our goodbyes!! It was pouring & a miserable winter's night that night though so I think everyone was actually just jealous that it was G getting to go to Hawaii, rather than the rest of us! (At least that's what I was thinking anwyay).....little did we know how bad the rest of the night would get though!!

After we left the party we got about 20 minutes down the highway, only to be stopped & told that there had been a slip on the Bryn Derwen's & that we would have to turn right up a little side road. They then said that we should take a left & then left again. So we continued up the road they'd sent us, but once we'd been going for 15 minutes & hadn't come to any roads to turn left down, we all started to panick a bit. We ended up turning into a driveway where Mell saw some lights still on & Dad & Mell got out of the car to go & ask for help. 

The guy took them inside & Jeanette & I sat in the car for what seemed like forever, waiting for them to reapear. When they finally did, the guy from the house came out with them too & started leading us back down to the road where where'd been sent on the detour in the first place. The guy said that it was too dangerous a road to take, especially at that time of night & that they should've sent us left, heading towards Mangawhai instead. 

About 15 cars passed us heading up the other way on our journey back down, so we worried about them & whether they'd ever make it out alive that night haha - or if they even had enough petrol to make the trip. (I think it ended up that that way was blocked as well anyways so those guys would've had a super stink night too)

So yea, it was thanks to the man who lived in the remote house, with his mail order bride & a 1000 teapots, that we made it out that night. He said that he had 7 rooms so we could've stayed the night if we'd wanted to - but the 1000 teapot thing creeped us all out so we were grateful, but relieved to be on our way!!

The Mangawhai road wasn't without it's dramas either though - we got lost a few times on that leg of our journey as well & tried to use my GPS to help us get back on track, but the GPS just kept changing so we were pretty much stuffed. 

Anyways, we eventually found our way back to the main highway & arrived back in Auckland, but probably an hour & a half later than we would've if it had all been smooth sailing. Poor Mell hadn't factored that major detour into her timing for the night either, so by the time we got home she was desperately needing to see her baby.

My oh my, what an adventure that night was!!! The first part of the evening was awesome & then it just turned into a frustrating nightmare haha...so grateful for the fun company that I had with me along the way, but do wonder why I'm always with Mell when painful trips like this take place? Am thinking I may have to think twice before I travel with her in the future now ;)