Holiday BreakfastJust two hours from Auckland sits Whangarei - the gateway to the north.
It's easily accessible and with plenty on year-round, it's earned its title 'the winterless north'.
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What's happening in your neck of the woods?
Summer? Were the mayors? Yes?
Quarter past six. Our next stop for summer with the Mayors is Fugada, the gateway to the North, just a two hour drive from Auckland. It's an easy spot to get to, with plenty on all the year round. It's known as the winterless North. But what's it like over summer? Fan a mayor Vince Cocarello is with me. Now, good morning, Good morning Tom. So you've you've got a pretty busy region over summer. Where do the do locals sort of go to their own private spots to avoid everyone else?
You know, it's one of the interesting things about Fangoda and Northland. You know when you live in north and all your life you go, well, where do we go? Well, they usually end up at the beach. It's quite commonplace and they usually go a lot. We've got a lot of Funaday residents who've got beaches up in the far North or in the Kaipra or some of them reach out towards Mattapur and tud Garkias. Again, it's a beautiful spot to be.
It's funny, isn't it that if you live in a town that's popular for people to visit, but the locals always think, oh, I want to go somewhere else, as opposed to saying home.
Are you like that? No, I'm not. I'm one of these sad individuals who actually really enjoys being around the district. I get asked many times that you're going away for holiday and go no, no, Actually, I'm here in fagurday. I'm here to get the jobs done and I'm out in about all the time.
What are the challenges that you have faced back in twenty twenty four, you know, I mean, what's it like being mayor of fung Ray? The good and the bad, the good and the bad.
Well, look, the great thing about it is Sunday is an amazing district. It's grown very very fast. I do say that fast to view because it wasn't It wasn't too long ago when it was only sixty thousand, now at one hundred and five thousand and still going strong. Probably the highlights that we've got so many multicultural people here, you know it eighteen thousand Indians in North on the loan. We've got Filipinos will shot that fi looking at Christmas in twenty four. So it's all about making sure our community its feeling interactive and actually having a great time together. So that's that's the big highlights for me because we've really had that's what our communities like about it. Sad side things, we were still cleaning up from the damage of the cyclone.
Gabriel, Oh blimey, yeah, I mean that must hang quite heavily over a community, doesn't it for a long time until because there's always always people who are seen to last, I guess.
And still that Unfortunately with a cyclone, the damage that it actually did to some of the roading network, it's actually been quite quite horrendous that and it's going to be look three or four years to finish and cleaning up all of those slips. So's that's still stuff and our community knows it. It's just it's frustrating and it's always going to be frustrating.
Tell us about the Endless Summer Festival. What's that about?
Oh? The Endless side of that is an amazing event. It basically goes from through to March it is NonStop what we call family friendly free events. There's loads of them involved in it, says the Odd Bay thing as well, like for example, the Super Rugby and the Hot Grill Summer Food Competition all of February, you know, all those sort of things. And of course we've also got the Freer Festival, which is an event which is the tenth year anniversary of that and it's on the eighth of March as well, and these tickets are available for that now. So it's one of those things which is always. Probably an event you haven't heard of before, is the loved Here Festival that's happening on the fortieenth of February. It's on Valentine's Day. I know it sounds strange, but love it here fing today Valentine's Day, Cathler Park. It's going to have food, stalls, music, entertainment all through the day.
What's your pick of the festival? I think it's difficult to play favorites. I know when you're mayor, isn't it Oh my.
Goodness, I look like the big thing about it is I just love being out and about amongst our community. You've seeing them enjoy things. It's one of the big things about being mayor. And you know I did this before when I was doing all my volunteer role, but as me, this is what I end up doing and getting out there amongst all the people.
So where will you be spending your time over the break? Are you Are you totally staying in Fangerra? Are you actually getting away for a bit of a moment?
A great question, Tim. I have got family in the Kuipers, so I do travel across the Dargable regularly, but over over the summer period, I'm not too far away from a phone call, so I'm generally dealing with a lot of strange enough. I still run my IT business, so I still do a little bit of that from time to time. The big thing, though, is it's really just being around the garden doing my grapes, sucking my grapes and then making sure that the vines are already and so they're almost right. Shortly so another month and they should be starting picks. So yeah, that's that part of me.
And what about looking forward for you for twenty twenty five? What's what are your challenges? What what are you excited about for Friday?
We've got some amazing things happening. I'm not sure you realized him, but we've got four cruise ships coming into Sagurday as from January through to March. And you know that's a big thing for Northland and a big thing for Sanurday. We've got so many things happening, and I just I know of all your different rugby the hockey events which are coming online. There are just so many things for the family and the friends be able to do in Sagurday. So I do say if you're around Auckland and you want to do something, come up to Northland. There's plenty of things to do.
Good on you events. Hey really appreciate your time this morning and all the best wishes for twenty twenty five.
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