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Camper Van
First Camper Van Pic - the kids April 9 - 14 - Bay of Islands and North of Auckland
Wow, I can't believe I am a month behind on this entry! I don't know where the time goes....
Left Timaru late afternoon on Thurs. April 9th. Spent the night at the Airport Gateway Motel in an awesome 3 bedroom, 2 bath, full kitchen room. We wished we had arrived earlier to enjoy it as we knew the next 9 nights in a camper van were going to be tight quarters! We were taken by limo to the airport for our 7am flight to Auckland. It took until nearly noon to get settled with the camper van and get on the road. It was Good Friday and we were unaware that nearly everything shuts down. We've heard that only 1/3 of all New Zealanders believe in God, and yet the whole country happily takes the Christian holiday. This meant heaps of traffic heading north of Auckland (also the beginning of all New Zealand schools first 2 week break) and all grocery shops closed. And no wine or alcohol for sale. And we had hoped to stock the camper van....It was a beautiful day and we hated spending
Lisa in Camper Van
On ferry to Russell... it on the road. It took us nearly 5 hours to get to Russell. Although we luckily did not see any traffic accidents we later heard there were several along the route between Auckland and Warkworth. We stopped for lunch at a bee farm/cafe and at Goat Island to walk on the beach. We arrived at the Top Ten in Russell around 6pm and were glad we had pushed on. We took the car ferry over (see photo) and had a gorgeous spot with a wonderful view of the Bay of Islands. That night we walked around Russell and opted to have dinner at The Swordfish Club (see photo) the second oldest swordfish club in the world. Most clubs in NZ allow you to sign in as a guest for meals or drinks. We had a really fun and entertaining dinner. We discovered a NZ law that we were unaware of... although the legal drinking age is 18, parents are allowed to purchase alcohol and serve their children at their discretion (in clubs and restaurants). This meant that I got to buy Sydney her first drink - a White Russian. Surprisingly, everyone slept very well the first night in our
Swordfish Club
Russell - Bay of Islands little van (really a small motor home).
Saturday was beautiful and we left the camp ground at around 10am to catch the passenger ferry over to Paihia and to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. We took about a 40 minute walk along the beach to the Waitangi National Reserve. We took a Maori tour, saw the treaty grounds, the giant Weke (canoe). We had a lovely outdoor lunch before heading back to Russell via the fast ferry. We then did the shopping that we hadn't been able to do the day before (and everything would be closed again on Easter Sunday). It turned into a bit of a crazy afternoon when we both lost Avery for a while and our groceries in the chaos. It all ended well as we found both the groceries and Avery. We took a walk over to the other side of Russell to see the ocean and all the sailboats moored in the bay. Syd cooked a yummy spaghetti dinner for us while Gregg and I talked to our Auckland, Windsurfing neighbors. Rented "21" and put the DVD in the camper to use.
Easter Sunday - although we asked about a sunrise service, everyone
looked at us like we were nuts, so for the first Easter that I can remember, we didn't go to church. So, after a big cooked breakfast we did one last tour of Russell up to the Flagstaff lookout to see a panoramic view of the Bay of Islands (awesome). Back on the car ferry and off to Paihia beach where to the excitement of Gregg, it was windy enough to rent a little Hobbie Cat for an hour of sailing with the kids. I enjoyed my book on the beach - even though it wasn't nearly as warm as I would have liked! Shortly after lunch we headed west across the peninsula. It was a long a boring drive. We were all getting really anxious to stop when Avery spotted these giant sand dunes up in the distance. As we drove into Opononi we saw a boat taking people over to the dunes and people were sledding down them on boogie boards. Gregg arranged a pick up for us - the last of the day -and we headed over for an hour of sand dune sledding. It was such a spontaneous and fun thing to do on Easter -
see photos. After that we had about an hour to get to the next Top Ten in the Kauri Forest. We stopped to look at the giant Kauri trees and walk around a bit. It was dark by the time we pulled into the campground. Luckily it was very nice with great hot showers to wash off the sand and a lovely outdoor kitchen for cooking our Easter lamb dinner. Another really great day.
Monday was a long day of travel. We woke up early and checked out. Gregg wanted to get a walk in before we set off to head south of Auckland to Miranda enroute to the Coromandel Peninsula. We hiked in the 45 hectare Trounson Kauri Park. It was a 45 minute hike that Syd ran and we hiked. Once again we were listening for Kiwis and hoping to see them in the wild. And once again, the elusive Kiwis were not to be seen but Avery did find a giant snail - really cool - see photo. The next stop was in Dargaville at the Kauri museum. It was huge with way too much to see and not a very good layout, but interesting and
worthwhile. We did take lots of photos which Graham is now happy about as he has to do a school project on the Kauri Tree. The next Holiday Park was in Miranda, very nice with natural hot pools. We had a relaxing evening playing tennis, soaking in the pools and as you can see from the photo, I got a nice little cruise around the park at cocktail time😊
We are all very excited as tomorrow we hook up with Nana and PopPop (Gregg's parents, Howard and Jean) who have just arrived in New Zealand.
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Jill Zimmer
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Riding in Style!
I burst out laughing when I saw the last picture of you and Graham...where can I get one of thos bikes?!?!