New Zealand - North - Auckland

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Hi everyone, NO WHALE, didderely squat out there !!! Soooooo disappointed, just wanted to see a tail or blowing up from the water, anything, but nooooooooo. 5 hours we were out there and not a whale insight and to just rub salt in the wounds, the skipper said I will play you a video of a whale. What !!! Noooooooo, Crazy Man, does he not know this will make us feel worse !!! we want to see the real thing, couldn't believe it and to top it all I was on the top deck and the boat was going really fast out to sea and I stumbled and forgot to bring one of my 'toes' with me and I am now in complete agony and hobbling everywhere, I can see a big bruise coming out. Stu said 'what are you going to do' ? Ehhhh, what I'm doing now, Hobbling !!! It is so painful, soaked it in hot water, put a flip flop on and dragging it around after me !! I look a bit odd !!!! So, no Whale and potentially broken toe !!! Not good. So that was not the nice things today, the positive things are, we are in New Zealand !!! and we did see a lot of lovely Dolphins, these were called 'common Dolphins', they are bigger than the 'Hector Dolphins' we saw in the South Island, really was a gorgeous sight seeing them chase the boat, then jumping out of the water and showing off !! Saw lots of sea birds and loads of sailing boats, Auckland is known as 'the city of the sails'. We caught the boat from Viaduct Harbour which really is very nice, lots of bars and restaurants and happy people cos it was hot and sunny, the boat took us into the Waiemata harbour and then into The Hauraki Gulf in the South Pacific Ocean. Stunning scenery as usual, passed lots of islands, Rangitoto and Waiheke Island and so many more, beautiful, I really cannot explain how magnificent this place is, Stu and I don't think we have been anywhere, where it has so much breathtaking scenery, probably mountains outside of San Francisco and Yosemite, but for a whole country, New Zealand beats it by far. So back on our boat, we went quite a way out to sea to find 'The Invisable Whale' !!! We went right past Coromandel where we had previously stayed, we had to go through all those windy roads to get there and get out again, it was a nice boat trip but there were quite a few people on there who were sea sick. I'm not sure I would say it was that rough, but I guess it was to someone who doesn't get on boats a lot.

Anyhow despite my 'No Whales', I did see Kiwi's which was amazing, I'm now off to take some pain killers and work out what I'm going to do with the foot tomorrow !!

Oh and Stu had a hair cut today cos his head was truly fluffy and going mad !! He then said and what are you going to do with you're barnett ? And I said 'absolutely nothing', I'll put a hat on it, til I get home !!

We had another meal in one of those places I mentioned yesterday, they are called 'Food Alleys', fantastic places, they appear to be all over the place, tonight we had Thai food. Oh and I'm 'hugging' another tree, sooooo big.

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