Making the most of the retirement life

Dawn and her husband Syd moved to Pakuranga Park in 2018, after visiting many retirement villages all over the country: “I liked the size of the villas at Pakuranga Park and the fact that I could have my own garden, I instantly knew we would be happy here.” A few days after they bought their villa, Dawn went to her aquarobics class at Lloyds Elsmore and discovered that one of her classmates also lived there: “I was speaking with the lady, and she told me that moving to Pakuranga Park was the best decision we had ever made!”

Dawn started cross stitching when she was 21 years old, but she had to put it aside when she was too busy with marriage and work. When she was 50 years old, she had the chance to recover her passion and she hasn’t stopped since then.

Dawn has been doing a Christmas stocking every year for friends and family and she spent more than six months cross stitching a gorgeous Santa Claus that is displayed each Christmas.

Dawn worked as a secretary in Air New Zealand for 21 years and then she was employed at King’s College running the Copy Centre. Moving to a retirement village gave her the chance to de-stress her life and devote more time to the things she really enjoys, like aquarobics and cross stitching.

Two years ago Dawn also knew she had to seize the opportunity of a lifetime when Air New Zealand advertised cheap premium economy tickets to Houston. “Since I was a teenager I loved Elvis, my mother used to come into my room and yell turn this down! But eventually she became a huge fan too.”

Dawn and Syd followed their gut and bought the tickets to fly to Houston. “Graceland was a lot smaller than I was expecting!” says Dawn while holding one of the favourite pictures of her trip. “Also, we didn’t spend enough time in there, it was over too quickly”.

Despite some disappointment, they had lots of memorable experiences. Dawn and Syd visited NASA, they cruised for a week on a paddle steamer down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and they took the train back to Houston. Quite the trip of a lifetime!