Famous Blue Chair B & B Coopers Beach

... hill that has a beautiful view on all of Auckland. I jogged up there one time and walked it another with my rollerblades in hand for the ride down. Which was fun, but not relaly practicle since I don't have brakes and the road wasn't really wide enough to turn back and forth like I would have wanted. During the week we stayed with some friends of Mikes, I was lucky enough to stay in the backyard in a seperate studio, so its hard to complain. It ...

Rory again for Whatuwhiwhi! First thing's first. The town name is not pronounced 'what..you..wee..wee..' as we originally thought and brought us great amusement. There are lots of towns with Maori names such as this one and if they have a 'Wh..' in them then it is pronounced as an 'F' so the town is actually pronounced 'Fat..you...fee..fee'. That's only marginally less amusing :) We were there for 2 nights and on the map it looks like there's ...

The weather was glorious again and the day started with opening the curtains to the two sets of sliding glass doors and laying in bed looking over the estuary. We headed further north today. We had already decided that we would not travel the full length of Ninety Mile Beach (the peninsula that stretches to Cape Reinga, the most northern point of New Zealand) but drove a little way up the main road (SH1) to one of the early points where you can ...

... became in 1929. Both stand on the banks of the river which has stepping stones across to the main car park. We also took a detour off of the main SH1 so we could stop off at Matauri Bay - a long and sandy beach surrounded by pine forests on the hills around. It was another lovely sunny day and we stopped here for a swim. There is a hilltop memorial here commemorating the Greenpeace ship ...

... austrecken um die Tuer zuzuhalten. Das ging so nicht weiter und wir wollten dann am 2. Tag der Vermietung anrufen und reklamieren. Zum Glueck haben wir das nicht gemacht!!! Wir stellten fest, und das nach 2 Tagen, dass man den Knopf an der Tuer reindruecken muss um die Tuer zu blockieren...na toll! Abends haben wir uns dann was in der Kueche vom Campingplatz gekocht und gegessen und waren etwas spaeter im Bett, voll kaputt aber haben ueber diesen Knopf gelacht....

In Manapouri we check e-mails. Janice had sent out a Christmas message to our local friends and her in box is full of replies. Claire checks out more information on van buying. After lunch we head for Whangaroa, another picturesque village round the coast. It is a big game fishing centre and the marina has plenty of boats with chairs bolted to the deck at the back with sockets for fishing rods. You can imagine Hemingway pulling in a marlin. We do a steep walk up to ...

... the supermarket advertising the van that we spotted earlier. Claire phones up but she finds that it is being taken for a test drive at that moment and doesn't hear any more. Christmas is certainly celebrated here but the run up seems less manic and not as commercialised as in the UK. After lunch we take the house's sea kayaks out into the bay. They are ...

... visited by cows, deeps hoff prints in the ground making getting down again treacherous. After slipping over for about the 3-4 time I started to wish i had the cows steady feet and unworried step. Then I remember that although if I fell and broke a leg it would be bad, if I was a cow and fell and broke a leg they'd shoot me in the head and make burgers. I stopped wanting to be a cow and made it back to the hostel with only slight cow issues but no more cow envy.

... s elegance for you to see. We set off again and passed yet more cow farms, sheep farms, farms with horses and farms with turkeys. We stopped for lunch near a beach and walked along its shores to get some circulation flowing though our legs. I went out and splashed in the waves, the water was cold as was the beach, but I had fun. Then I went along the shore looking for sea shells. There was a place near the end of the beach that had large black stones. In between the ...

... Awanui', to visit the 'Ancient Kauri Kingdom'. This was really a commercial concern that dug up enormous Kauri logs and sculpted them into furniture, statues and tourist items. In their showroom was a Kauri tree that had a circular staircase cut inside it - very impressive! Late afternoon and we were back in Kaitaia, feeling a little sad that we had covered New Zealand from bottom to top and were now heading back towards Auckland and exit.