Road Trip!

---

Sam and Jo came to meet me at the airport in Auckland and we jumped in our family sized hire car (just as well given all our luggage!!) to start our 5 day road trip to the Northland area. We quickly faced our first challenge.... trying to get out of the city!! We could see the motorway we wanted to get on to and spent a happy half hour zig zagging over it on bridges and driving along side it but I swear there wasn't a single signpost for getting on to it in the direction we wanted to go.... we later found out that to go north you first had to go south??!!

Our first stop was a place called Whangerai (still can't get my head around how a wh is pronounced f but I guess I'll get used to it by the end of the year!!) and from there a trip to the Poor Knights Islands. I'd never really snorkelled before so had a great day looking at soft corals and marine life.... even saw a huge ray. The water was freezing but it was a sunny day and they gave us full wetsuits, complete with hoods and booties, so we had a relaxed day alternating between snorkelling and warming up in the sun with hot drinks!

Next stop was Paihia where we'd planned an exciting day on a 'fast' yacht around the Bay of Islands. A lack of wind meant our fast day soon became a slow drift so we had a chilled day snoozing on the deck in the sun and looking at the hundreds of jellyfish (apparently of the non-stinging type but I wasn't game to find out!) in the water around us. On the way back we made friends with some dolphins who seemed to enjoy swimming along side the boat and showing off with the odd jump. Whilst in Paihia we also squeezed in some cultural stuff ;0) The Treaty of Waitangi (essentially the founding document for modern NZ)was signed here in 1840 just across the Waitangi River and we spent an interesting few hours wondering around the Treaty grounds and learning some of the history of NZ.

On our fourth day we drove up to the far north of NZ and a place called 90 mile beach... although actually only some 66miles in length so I'm not too sure hope it got its name... After bumping along an unmade road for 20 mins we arrived about an hour before sunset - all the tourist buses were long gone so it was a perfect time to be there. Not that there's too much to see... other than endless beach in either direction of course! The perfect way to end the day.

---