Little Earth Lodge Whangarei

Departed Orewa Campsite and travelled up the Hibiscus Highway coast road heading for Pakiri. Fantastic scenery all around and had to negotiate some seriously steep mountain roads to get to where we were headed but was it worth it! Absolutely spectacular views. Pakiri campsite is situated at the end of a long dirt track and was rather difficult to negotiate in the van but we managed it eventually. Had a lovely pick nick ...

... car rentals,
we had realised due to time differences we had book the car for the
following night rather than the 29th, Due to people not
returning the cars as they should have done..a whole 150 cars. It was
to be impossible for us to get another car, Asking other rentals in
the hall, they were also fully booked out. Finally we decided that
we would come back in the morning and collect the car then.

Our next problem was, the Super 8 motel
we were ...

... by 4 hen parties and then walked around the incredibly innovative Te Papa Museum the next morning in a hungover haze, trying to work out who stole the last hour of the previous night and what they did with it. The next day was spent in Martinborough, walking from vineyard to vineyard...seriously, it should be illegal to have that many wineries in walking distance to the town! What a day though....great wine....and I mean really great wine, great company and ...

At 9.15am we took the catamaran called "Great Sights" to see the "hole in the rock" at the Bay of Islands. After that we saw some dolphins surfing around our boat, was nice to watch them. The trip was over around 11.45am so we went back to the beach and had something small to eat before heading to Long Beach at Oneroa Bay for a swimm. We left Russell the same day around 5.30pm and drove first to Kawakawa to see the toilets of Hundertwasser, certainly the ...

... coaches, which means that the beaches and bays aren't full of tourists - unless they're like me, and visiting the locals. We did a quick walk on the Bream Head scenic reserve to Smuggler's Cove - the only way to get there is on foot. And then we drove to Ocean Beach, which is where the road ends; you just can't get any further. The people who live round here are another sort of 'lifestylers', not the 'self ...

Die letzten Tage war ich in Whangarei, ist ne ziemlich grosse Stadt und ich konnte hier entlich die raetzelhaften Warnlampen die mittlerweile in meinem Auto leuchteten, erforschen lassen. Mussten aber nur ein paar Birnen ausgewechselt werden und jetzt mache ich mich frisch ausgeruht auf den Weg zurueck nach Auckland und immer richtung Sueden.

... lintje loop zie ik dat deze grote helemaal onder water staat. Onderweg naar de grotten loop ik langs grote rots blokken en het graf van een kindje dat is gestorven in 1883. De eerste grot waar je in kon was best groot maar ook deze grot stond voor een gedeelte onder water en de stenen waren hartstikke glad. Ik ben maar een klein stukje de grot in gelopen en ben er daarna weer snel uit gegaan. In de grot waren wel een paar ...

... Unfortunately, we couldn't eat or drink in the pools so eventually hunger forced us to decamp to the campsite for a barbie and a couple of morale-boosting glasses of red wine. After poring over weather reports we plotted our route north to try and catch up with some sun. On the road, we did meet a feller who was more than happy with the arkian rain - Mike. Mike is an independent brewer who produces two organically certified beers using only rainwater, hops ...

... caves, arches and tunnels. Everything that makes for great diving! With the water slightly colder (20 degrees Celsius) than tropical seas the visibility is amazing and on both dives the visibility was 20 plus or more. Obviously you need a serious wetsuit in 20 degree waters so we were each clad in two piece 5 mm wetsuits with hoodies and I must admit were still a little cold. Must have been due to the 3 years of hot weather in Dubai ...

... for today and they gave us a quote. We didn't want to take the first quote we got, so we headed off to see if we could get a better deal elsewhere. We soon found a street that had four campervan company offices on it. We enquired in each one and some didn't have any available vans for a few days as this is peak season and they are all very busy. Some were mega-expensive (but beautiful vans) and way out of our budget. I was starting to worry that we wouldn't find ...