Blogs from Russell, Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

Today was the first of my three scheduled excursions, all with Fuller's Great Sights: the Hole in the Rock and Cape Brett cruise. I made it in to the wharf in 20 minutes, rather to my surprise, which meant that I had half an hour to wait. The clerk at Great Sights gave me poor advice: she told me to wait until the official boarding time to go onto the wharf itself. It's a good thing I only partially followed her advice, as there was a long line on the wharf within fifteen minutes of my arrival. At that point I asked someone else if the Hole in the Rock cruise was loading yet, and was told that it was, so I got in line. Actually, I got in the wrong line; two tour boats ... read more

Day 7 Tuesday Breakfast on Peter and Jenny’s balcony in the sunshine. Morning in Russell, went to the oldest church in New Zealand and the museum, then drove over to the start of a footpath that took us to Whangamumu harbour. This actually turned out to be a 5 mile hike up a mountain and down the other side but boy was it worth it! We ended up in a small bay where there were about 10 dolphins swimming up and down right near the shore. We sat there for ages and watched them - magical! Memorable moment today in Russell. Went into a charity internet cafe run by volunteers to post our blog. The man in charge must have been in his 70’s, had great difficulty transferring our photos from the smart card to a ... read more

We were checking emails one evening and came across one from the Whangarei group on Couch Surfing. It was from an American girl asking if anyone wanted to join her competing in the Russell Birdman contest. A couple of weeks before, I had seen an article in a paper (NZ Herald travel section?) about the festival and thought it would be a fun way to spend a Saturday. I hadn’t mentioned it to Colin as of course he would be playing football that day, and I try my best not to find us other things to do on a Saturday too often! But it seemed like fate had dropped this group posting in our in-box. We decided that we’d reply and see what happened. The least we could do would be to offer a bed and ... read more

Vandaag is het Superhero day in Nieuw-Zeeland!! Eerste echte rit van Auckland naar de Bay of Islands. En heb vandaag genoeg oefening gehad met links rijden. Volgens mij deed Tom het er om. Had 'em ingesteld voor de snelste route, maar volgens mij houdt Tom geen rekening met wegen, waarbij je constant in de remmen moet voor bochten. Wel een hele mooie bay route... Was om 13:00 in Russell. Vlug even een onderkomen gezocht en daarna een cruise genomen in de Bay of Islands. In de bay zitten veel dolfijnen, maar ook killer whales. En wat blijkt..in de ochtend was er een schouwspel van een killerwhale die 2 dolfijnen het water uit jaagt. Was groot nieuws en zelfs op het nieuws te zien.....zelf heb ik alleen een aantal dolfijnen gezien. s'avond relaxed een burger en biertje ... read more

Well, it's been quite a while since I blogged so thought I should, plus I'm moving ons soon so wanted to fill you in on everything that I've been up to in Russell in the past month or so. SInce I last updated this I changed jobs again! For the past 4 or 5 weeks I've been working at the 'front 4square' which is a little supermarket shop on the waterfront and it's been a total laugh. Ella sorted me out with the job, if I hadn't got it i would have had to leave Russell sooner cause I would have just spent all the money I'd saved up. Anyway, since I've been working at the 4sq it's been awesome in Russell and really all I've done is worked, beached it and gone out - what ... read more