NZ Bay of Islands and Beyond

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The day looked brighter and we decided to make the most of it. KerKeri in the morning and Dolphin watching in the afternoon. Kerikeri is a small town north of Pahia where there are lots of shops and excellent coffee shops and a cinema! Clothes are not cheap in NZ and the lovely cut offs I tried on were £90 so I thought they would only get ruined by the laundries we use so gave it a miss.

A quick takeaway toastie and off on the boat to visit cathedral rock and the islands and watch Dolphins. We stopped at a lovely beach to drop someone off and then spotted the dolphins. Weather not great and the dolphins were after fish not playing as before in the Galapagos. However the speed they travelled was amazing. As the boat speeded up so did they. So beautiful to watch. We then carried on but the water was so rough we were not able to travel through the rock. We stopped at another beach which was beautiful and the water so inviting despite the rain but silly us had no bathers.

The journey back was a bit dismall with the rain lashing down so when we arrived on shore we snuck into the first restaurant Bar 35 and was served by a lovely Irish lady and just couldn't resist the green lipped mussels! And an ale or two before returning to our little retreat.

We were hoping our last day here would be sunny but no the rains returned so glad we went on the boat yesterday. We decided to plan some of the trip down south but in the afternoon we went to Kerikeri and went to the lovely cinema and watched James Bond in Skyfall, thoroughly recommend the cinema, you can have a meal there or not and you can take in a glass of beer or wine in to watch the film. Very comfy seats, very clean and the film was worth watching, a different James Bond style but just as gripping. We then returned to Pahia and Bar 35 a lovely way to round off a wet day!

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