Hananui Lodge Motel Russell

... don't see everyday so diverse sponges, nudibranches, tambjas, eagle ray, scorpionfish, mados, grey moray, blue maomaos, sandager's wrasses and many others. Visibility was over 40m, extraordinary.
Digesting the beauty I'd seen I moved through Auckland to Coromandel peninsula.

Day 6
Having driven till 3 in the morning last night my day started a bit late. Coastal route brought me to ...

... body surfing" down the huge sand dunes on boogie boards. You lie on the board, point down hill and hope for the best. If your lucky you stay on the board and clear the dry sand to come to a graceful stop on the wet stuff. Not sure it matters as sand is sand and it still gets everywhere, wet or dry : o ( We had a day out sailing with Glen the skipper of She's a Lady, a fine yaucht that took us around the islands and stopped at one for lunch and ...

... three amazingly sunny and relaxing days in Paihia, the bay of Islands. It is the perfect place to chill out and relax, in this tropical paradise! We have been staying at another great YHA situated just 50m from the long sandy beach and clear blue and green waters of the Pacific Ocean. Our first day was to be a chill out day on the beach. We threw down our bags and settled on the beach for the afternoon. This proved to be a disaster for Heather and the sun ...

The weather today is glorious, and breakfast is outside in the sunshine just a stone's throw from the beach and the ocean. All yesterday's weather had died down and the sounds of water are now from the waves coming up the beach rather than the gales pounding the windows. But we've had to earn our breakfast, which involved a trek up to the top of Flagstaff Hill to where Hone Heke cut down the British shipping flagpole in ...

... a newer, maori meeting house (also built for the centenery), which had some amazing carvings inside. After the tour I took a 5km walking track through forest and mangroves to Huraru Falls - it was a really nature-filled walk with lots of birds and being the only person on it, I felt miles away from anywhere! Had a picnic en route and walked back via the road to make it a round trip. Back in Paihia I fell asleep lying on the grass listening to music by the beach ...

We arrive in Auckland pretty late and manage to find a bus that will take us near to our hostel but end up getting on the one that goes the long way round so we get to the hostel pretty late! In the morning we walk down to the centre of Auckland where we have a quick look around and then we head to the harbour. We catch a passenger ferry across to Devonport where we walk along the sea front for a while and then walk around the headland before heading back into town for a very late lunch ...

... it. Mind you when you got my weight going down a very steep sand dune I was able to get up a fair bit of speed. The walk to the top of the dunes was a killer though. It is bad enough walking in sand, let alone climbing a steep sandy "hill". Managed it twice though, and I dontt think anyone managed it more than 3 times in the half hour. The coach then drove onto 90 mile beach, this got its name hundreds of yeard ago when farmers would move livestock along it, and they ...

... sunshine, lovely beaches, bays and coastal settlements. It is also popular with marine life and on most days you can see dophins out in the bay somewhere, feeding, swimming or just mucking around. We went out for a day sail on the bay and fortunately we found a pod of them doing the later, leaping and jumping out of the water and generally having a great time. Of couple of days ...

... least talented magician the world has ever known used to say, "every second counts".

As soon as we moored in the bay next to another sail boat...



...Mike's daughter prepared the motor dinghy and we were taken to the mainland in three trips.

Two people were able to kayak over to dry land and ...