The Grand Hotel Whangarei

Woke up to light rain in karikari. Packed up camp quickly and headed north to kataia. Stopped at an info center and booked poor knights dives tomorrow!!! Headed north from there and the rain just got worse and worse. Had a look at 90mile beach(or what we could see of it throught the fog).Stopped at the puer white silica rarawa beach on the east coast, which was very nice, but rainy and ...

Managed to stay for free at the campsite. Cause I got up early and packed up all my things and went for a walk on the beach. Jogged a little bit and kicked the soccer ball around before heading up to the highway to hitch a ride to Whangarei. Got picked up by a couple of young guys from Auckland who were going up north to try to sell their car. They dropped me off right at the front door of the back-packers place I was staying at. More like a bed and ...

... where the Kiwi-Kowboys (in this case the K doesn't alter the definition... I just did it for affect)would display their cowboy ruggedness by wrestling and grappling the unsuspecting calve to submission... sounds like some quality entertainment to me! They might as well have a slaughtering event afterwards... just to finish the job. That might be a bit too much actually... bad idea. So far in life, there haven't been too many events that have ...

... and invited her along. But after seeing the size of the car, we were panicked. Somehow though, everything fit, but only just! It took a bit of back and forth, but we finally found our way out of the city and headed north on motorway nr. 1 to the Northland. The car is a little Diahatsu car which would be a sweet car if it wasn't overloaded with bags! Going uphill was a bit of a battle. On the way we stopped at a museum for ...

Pahia - Whangarei (16/11/08) Distance 70.25km (+about 5km before I remember to reset the computer). Average 18.30 Max 58.25 (actually exceeding a speed limit of 50km/hr through some road works) Short: * I cycled with a German guy called Martin * It was OK but we won't be cycling together again * Stayed at Bunkdown Lodge for night * Bed was uncomfy & Martin was there (At the hostel NOT in the bed!) * Moved to little Earth Lodge ...

... site and started to walk into town for dinner. I coped but am now regretting it. It turns out to be "Jazz and Blues" festival time in Whangarei but I only listened from the street; I don't think I'd stay awake long enough to really enjoy it. By the way, unlike many English place names which have silent letters, some Maori ones have invisible letters. In the case of Whangarei, the "F" is invisible.

... so we spoke some French to her and I was impressed by how much she knew :) We had dinner but Fleur had already fallen asleep on the couch. It was so nice to have proper home cooking, as it's hard to eat healthy when you're on the road. After dinner we played some games, then I read to Zoe. She was tired, but wanted me to read her another one, she fell asleep :) We looked at some of my pics and they showed me some of their photos then went to bed.

yes folks we are officially underway - we have booked the flights - Carmel leaves on June 30th and will visit her sister in Chicargo. I leave on July 6, and we meet up for ten days in Vancouver before heading to the UK. I want to come to grips with this blogging thing before we head off, so I'll keep you posted.

... ja uusi kogemusi saada. Samas pean mainima, et joke ventiil on paras nurisünnitus. Mitte ükski ventiil mitte kummalgi ei pidanud täiesti õhutihedalt kõigi 6 sukeldumise jooksul, mis me siiani oleme teinud. Lekked ei olnud märkimisväärsed ja vaid kõrvaga vaevu kuuldavad, aga siiski. Poor Knights on oma väga suure sukeldumiskohtade arvuga külastamist väärt, sest iga tuule suunaga on olemas varjulisi kohti. Lisaks on seal küllaga vaatamisväärsusi. Siin teenusepakkuja site: http://www.diving.co.nz/

... was really beautiful. Since we had driven on a Metal road earlier in the day we had to clean out the van and wipe everything down. Which made the van look a bit nicer and at least when you would site down there wouldn't be clouds of dust around you. Well it is getting late and we have a long drive tomorrow. Shannon