21/1/15

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Wednesday 21/1/15Checking out day, two days go by very quickly. Packed and ready to leave Paihia by 9 ish on our way back South past Auckland and on to Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula. Some good advice from Craig, the manager at the Admirals View led to us turning off the main SH1 just before the toll and having lunch on the beach at Orewa, another tourist hotspot and no wonder. Driving over the bridge through Auckland at about 3.30 was interesting, 3 and 4 lanes of traffic sometimes crawling along and sometimes flying and cutting lanes. I was glad to get past it and back to the relative calm of the rest of the NZ roads. Tonight's accommodation is a B&B, apart from the scarily steep driveway in it seems nice. Thames is a very quiet place, well it is in the evening anyway. An old gold mining town and looks like it, we had a surprisingly good meal in a hotel that wouldn't look out of place in a Western and a free drink courtesy of a card from the B&B.

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