Central Court Motel Whangarei

... next to the house are over 40 avocado trees. That was about as much enjoyment as we got out of it, because the second we met Bonny, the woman who lived there, we realized we were in for a rough couple of days. Immediately upon arrival she let us know that she's "honest" and that it can be "off-putting" sometimes, which translated into her being rude most of the time. We won't get into all the stories, but a few highlights are her refusal to give Peter the WiFi password until we ...

Endlich hat es mal (wied**) geklappt. Seit Dienstag bin ich bei Karen und Colin Walk** in d** Naehe von Whangarei, genau** gesagt eine gute halbe Stunde nordwestlich davon, in irgendeinem Dorf, in irgendein** Strasse, an d** es wenige and**e Haeus** gibt, dafu** grosse Grundstuecke und viele Ti**e. Die beiden haben auf ein** ihr** Wiesen 2 Kuehe stehen, sie haben 6 Huehn**, 2 Hunde und einen grossen Garten, in dem es viel zu tun gibt. Da beide Vollzeit arbeiten und nur ...

... P) and we arrived safely in Whangarei... Before going to the falls we went to the Whangarei Marina for a quick lunch and there Martijn had a shocking experience. The ketchup they supplied with the meal was actually mostly made out of apples (a cost saving measure Chrissy said)... And you can TASTE that! Initially he didn't believe Chrissy when she said the ketchup on table was the cheap kind MADE OF APPLES... But after trying it the horror truly hit home!!! Lesson ...

... right where the boat should be according to my calculations, the boat had gone. It had just moved behind the island due to high winds and we laughed as all the divemasters surfaced there too looking worried. The arch was cool, loads of dayglo coloured yellow and orange encrusting things and massive red snapper, scorpionfish and blue maomaos. All the Dive! Tutukaka staff were great and the trip was probably the best we have done so far. Despite the underwater ...

... garden'. You buy a section, which very often could be sub-divided so in principle more properties could be built on the land - I think in NZ a property generally comes with about 1/4 acre of land. And compared to England, the prices here are a real bargain. Homes are large, spacious and have large windows so provide spectacular views; they're probably surrounded by a deck, and in this part of the world there's often space to park your boat, your ...

... optimistic way 'so you'll get wet feet, that has happened before, no problem'. So i found the fence, in fact i found several but located the right fence and i hoped over (this was not easy). Then it wend from a bit bad (wet feet) to very bad (more slippery, no path just little makers on the tree's to try and head for with out breaking any limbs. Then it got worse, horrendous in fact it continued to ...

... van hun padi certificaat en zo hebben we een volle boot. Ik mag alleen maar een duik maken terwijl de anderen twee duiken maken. Ik wordt gekoppeld aan een ander die een 'refresh course' heeft geboekt. Hij heeft wel zijn Padi maar heeft in 7 jaar niet meer gedoken. Samen krijgen we een instructrice. Voor mij wordt alles geregeld. Ik hoef geen knopjes in te drukken en de instructrice houd je constant vast. Touwtje om je nek en het ...

... We relaxed, read and chuckled at the messages scrawled in the toilets in marker pen. Rather than your usual offers of old men looking for young lads (for building work, I presume), these were written by the owner, presumably following a group of grim campers stating "if you wont (sic) live like pigs, stay home!" We trekked out to see the falls close up then decided to again head off for somewhere new. We arrived in Whangarei a couple of days ago and have really ...

... We stopped at Kawakawa, a place noted for colourful tile works. Whangarei is a town of about 50000 people. But its streets are full of churches. Some solid buildings, some prefab-ish churches. Locals despair "tagging" - marking and graffiti on walls and public buildings. Locals say that this was a grave concern and complain about the lack of discipline, employment and meaningful raison d'etre amongst the ...

... supermarket to stock up on supplies (loads of beer and wine). Great, lets go camp! Luckily, it wasn't such a nightmare as Sydney and we found Highway 1 easily enough and headed north. We weren't even out of Auckland and we saw another spaceship coming in the opposite direction. They flashed their lights at us but Dean hadn't yet figured out where ours were. We travelled for a few hours and ended up in a place called Whangerei where we had no trouble finding a campsite ...