New Zealand

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We had to get up early today as we were hoping to drive to the coast and pick up a boat trip to the Poor Knights Islands. I know the weather here hasn’t been that warm, but the guidebooks and leaflets all said the diving and snorkelling around the Poor Knights is the best in the country and one of the best in the world as it’s a marine reserve area. Plus there is a lot of wildlife on the island so a boat trip covering both in and out of the water sounded like a good choice. The leafelets all said they set off around 11am so we drove there and found a tour shop. Unfortunately for us the leaflets lied and the boats had all already gone out at 8am for the day. They told us that tomorrow the weather was supposed to be terrible and their boats weren’t going to be going out at all. We were gutted, but I managed to persuade Matt that if we went up to the Bay of Islands the weather might be slightly better for boat trips up there.

We arrived in Paihia via a few beach stops en route, including the secluded and deserted Whale Bay, which was accessed via a ten minute walk downhill, and Matapouri Bay, which was a lovely stretch of sand full of grandparents with kids walking dogs and making sand castles.

Paihia was a bustling little town with lots of different Information Sites offering crusies. We grabbed stacks and stacks of leaflets and then jumped in the van and found a campsite nearby. After a late lunch we started ploughing our way through the leaflets and finally selected a couple of possible Bay of Island cruises we were interested in. I called them up to see whether they were running the next day and unfortunately one wasn’t due to the weather, and the other wasn’t due to having nobody else booked onto it. Giving up on the idea of a cruise, I called up a kite surfing school further up north where we planned to stop next, to see about booking us onto one of their courses. I was met with a message telling me that they’d left the country for winter and would be back operating again in late October.

We were gutted. It’s frustrating being here at this time of the year, knowing that by the time we leave everything will be open and running and the weather will be lovely.

We spent the evening reading more guide books, cooking dinner and trying to relax. Being on such a tight timescale is getting a bit stressful and I’m starting to miss the South Pacific islands again where our only dilemma was whether to go out on another snorkelling trip or whether to lay on the beach.

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Photos

Hunderwasser mosiac toilets in Kawakawa
In NZ there seems to be a trend for creating groovy artwork in public toilets as a way to gain more tourists. These were a mixture of tiles, old gates, bottles and all kinds of things and were created by a resident artist, architect, ecologist and philosopher in 1997.