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Published: December 1st 2009
Pohutukawa Tree
The "christmas" trees are flowering rather early this year. This is on the side of the Waitangi riverOn Monday 30th we travelled to Paihia and booked into the Bay Sands motel for just one night. We thought about staying two nights but the traffic was so noisy at night we settled for just the one! We walked the beaches and generally had a very lazy day, The weather was quite good, although not very sunny. The threatened rain did not eventuate fortunately. We watched the activities on the beach from our deck at the motel including the para-sailing by one very clever man who managed to sail both with the wind and against it - up and down the bay parallel to the beach. He seems to ride on a ski and controls the parachute with cords - very impressive! Also the mobile "booking office" (just a cabin on a trailer) for the sky-diving company was parked in the angle-parking bay right opposite the motel and we watched potential customers call and depart - usually without booking we think (probably the prices frightened them!) Those who did book would have been taken to the local air-field and dropped with parachutes over the beach, apparently!! We did not see any jumps - maybe the wind was too strong -but
Waka in distance!
Tourists are furiously paddling the Maori waka down the Waitangi river. They don't seem to get far!!! did see the parachutes being folded away from previous jumps.
On Tuesday we drove to the vehicular ferry at Opua and travelled to Russell and found that not much had changed since we last went there together (Beb has been more recently, with Robyn). It is still quite a quaint little town and the beaches are lovely. We drove back to Whangarei by the "old Russell road" and were surprised to find how that road had been improved - from the rough metalled road we drove over last time to a really well-surfaced, tar-sealed road. It was a lovely trip and reminded us what Northland used to be like - tea-tree covered rolling hills. The road is still very winding but this adds to the enjoyment as there was very little traffic until we approached the Whangarei end of the road. We called at the art gallery and restaurant at Helena Bay and it was well up to expectations - very tastefully laid out buildings and gardens. The coffee/tea was great - Beb had a piece of German cake (with cream - very rich) and George had a chocolate-chip cookie (also quite rich). Oh well, we were on vacation -
Beb admiring the view
of the Waitangi river and bridge to hell with diets!
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Amy, Mike and Rylee
non-member comment
:)
Looks like a lovely vacation!! :D I was thinking of you when it was so hot and sunny!