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Published: November 23rd 2006
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Goat Island
Early morning fish spotting Well, here we are in the middle of nowhere having spent the afternoon on a glorious deserted beach, trying to motivate myself to do my diary! Things are proving a bit different in New Zealand and one such thing is the lack of facilities to be able to put my photos on to disc myself or add them to the diary. There is no shortage of internet cafes but they are all kiosk type with no connections/printers etc, hence the reason there are no photos with this blog, but I will try at a later date to put some on!
As i said, things are a little different here. We had to pay twice as much for the campervan as in Australia because it is more or less high season which takes a fair chunk from our budget and the cost of living is more expensive with everything from phone cards, food, postage, campsites etc costing more so our budget is being stretched to its limit. It is not preventing us from doing most things though and we seem to have been tearing around the North Island and not even made much of a dent in it. We are also trying
Pataua Beach
Playing hide and seek to get off the beaten track a little bit as there are so many campervans and tourists here you get sick of the sight of them!! Everyone seems to be in such a tearing hurry as most people seem to have about 4 weeks to do both islands which is nigh on impossible; you do get caught up in the rush, rush attitude and have to take some time out and slow down. Hence the fact we are now in a place called Owiha on the East Coast near a place called Opotiki. Me and Rik are having a great laugh trying to pronounce all the names with only limited success; hopefully we will be fluent come the end of the holiday!
Anyway, back to the Bay of Islands where I left off. If you have ever seen pictures of New Zealand, chances are they were taken in the Bay of Islands. It is utterly beautiful and we camped right on the waters edge over looking one of the bays. (There were loads of German campervans there, but you will be pleased to know we beat them to the best spot!!) The next day we took a boat trip called
Bay of Islands
Pahia - my attempt at an artistic shot!! the 'Cream' trip as in the old days the boat visited all the outlying islands delivering the dairy produce. They still deliver things like the post and some supplies now, but most of the inhabited islands are self sufficient. We also went out to the famous Hole in the Rock (quite literally a hole in a rock!) and we able to sail right through it; quite a feat as the weather was deteriorating fast and we had to visit in the morning as opposed to the afternoon. Choppy seas were a bit of an understatement and personally I thought the boat skipper had a bit of a hankering to be a Coastguard Rescue skipper! Back in the shelter of the bay and we had lunch on stunning Urupukapuka island beach - try saying that when you've had a few beers.
The next day saw us visit Waitangi which is where the peace treaty between the Maori and the Pakeha (white man) was signed in the 1800s, and then drive further up the East coast on to the KariKari peninsula and to a place called Whatuphiphi (Fat oo fi fi). Another campsite on a beautiful little bay and hardly any other
Hole in the Rock
From a distance... people. We spent a couple of hours sat on the beach and spotted a couple of dolphins playing in the water. After walking along the beach to get a better look, Rik waded into the water and they swam to within about 3 foot of him to check him out, played around for a while then off they went; it was amazing and Kiera was squeeling her head off she was so excited - unfortunately I didn't have my camera!
It was then right around the top of North Island (we didn't to right to the tip of Cape Reinga because there is not much to see there and very touristy) to a place called Aripara right at the bottom of 90 mile beach. Here we saw the wierdest cloud formation which was lying just off the coast and was a huge long white fluffy cloud. The Maoris originally called New Zealand Land of the Long White Cloud and we are wondering if was because of this cloud, but haven't been able to find out. We came to this area to maybe do some sand tobogganing and they have massive sand dunes here, but we didn't want to do a
Bay of Islands
Uru whotsit beach where we had lunch. touristy 3 hour trip which involved driving up the 90 mile beach and back again! The tourist information lady was great and managed to find a bloke called Doug who runs Sand Safaris, to take the 3 of us out for an hour to some sand dunes. What luck, for the sum of $50 we got a 2½ hour trip as "he had nothing else to do for the afternoon", went sand tobogganing and he drove us right around the rocks to some totally inaccessible by road areas. (I did get a touch nervous at this point about the tide coming in and cutting us off!!) Me & Kiera also found a huge shell on the beach so we had a great day!
Next day we continued down the coast, on the west side this time and after crossing Hokianga Harbour (unfortunately it was very overcast so we didn't see it at its best apparently) we drove for what seemed like hours through Kauri forest and ended up on a campsite on Trounson Kauri Park. THe campsite was beautiful and was surrounded by a shallow river on three sides where Rik was able to do a little "tubing" on a
large inflated tyre. He kept banging his bum on the rocks and getting stuck, so if you are ever at our house, remind me to show you the video footage....... The reason we had come here was to do the Night Guided Ranger walk in the forest as the area is a big breeding area for the Kiwi. Our host was "Herb" who you could tell wanted to be anywhere except in the forest at night with us lot! It became hilarious in the end as he was telling us all off for not using our torches correctly and we had absolutely no chance of seeing a Kiwi as we were supposed to be deathly quiet; this on a gravel path with Herb swinging his full beam headlamp to and fro!!! It just finished us off when he briefed us to 'loud whisper' Kiwi or Kiwi Call and stand stock still if we saw or heard a Kiwi - yeah right!! (We have decided Musical Statues is now to be played as Kiwi Call)
On the way out the next day we visited the fascinating Kauri Museum which was the history of the logging industry and decimation of the Kauri
Waitangi
Kiera fills out her activity sheet - schooling with a difference.. Forests - Kiera enjoyed walking up and down the spiral staircase carved inside a tree. We carried on down the West Coast, cut across to Auckland and stayed there the night in a not too pleasant camp site. Friday saw us head down towards the Coromandel and we stayed at a lovely place called Miranda Hot Springs which had a fabulous big hot pool where we could while away a few hours. Late in the evening, the rain and wind started and after a wakeful night we awoke to gale force winds and torrential rain on Saturday morning. We were supposed to drive up the West side of the Coromandel Peninsula but didn't make it too far when I insisted we stop and we holed up in a Motel for the rest of the day watching television. The Coromandel is beautiful and I didn't want to see it in appalling weather - that and the fact the very twisty road was clinging to the side of the mountain about 1m above the raging sea....... Anyway, I have run out of internet time now so will publish this and carry on the next time, hopefully with some photos. Love to you
all and take good care, until next time
Lots of love
Nicchi, rik & Kiera xxxxx
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Roy Goodeve
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If you want a cheap holiday then you should come to South Australia and stay with your friends. Digby would love to have some people to treat him nice. Love Roy.