Brake Court Motel Whangamata

... 24 peeps. Two Oirish, a bunch of germans and english and the token Swiss bollocks. Don't get me started on the Swiss. Oh and a Swede who judging by his ampleness of grey hair is older than me - and quite frankly - that is truly acceptable. The driver is - wait for it - a WOMAN. Now this type of behaviour would simply not be allowed in our fine country. Women are permitted these days to be managers and accountants and business ...

... we found that the kayaking that we could do from the beach there was not going to run because the wind was rather stong, and it was recommended that a morning kayak would be better (at sunrise at 5:54). About 5 people took this up, rather than the 14 who were going to kayak earlier, which doesn't make huge amounts of business sense, but it's the way things run here. Instead we took a trip up to Paku ...

... for the night, a bach (summer house) right on the beach - fantastic!! We all awoke nice and early the next day and were amazed to see a beautiful beach right out front (it was dark when we arrived!) After nice brekkie we headed to Hot Water Beach where we took advantage of the thermal waters that run under the sand and dug ourselves our very own hot tub - fantastic. We then headed out to check out Cathedral Cove where we had a really nice cliff top ...

Hi All! Well I'm currently in a small town called Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga- thank you Andy for warning me ahead of time!) It's a lovely, quiet town and I plan on having a relaxing night ahead of me. I'm staying in this awesome hostel, which is very home-y. I think there are only two other people staying here! I had a wonderful few days in ...

... bags and went to grab coffee. To make a long story short, I've made a really wonderful friend. Turns out, we have a TREMENDOUS amount in common including how much we miss Australia, have had a lot of fun and have become instant, laughing friends. Stine and I spent all day together shopping and planning and having so much fun. Stine ends up buying the same pants I bought the day before, and we call them our "Magic Pants". We met Lucy ...

... spent several hours staring off into the distance in all directions. We worked up a sweat and rewarded ourselved with a cold one before heading off again to the Coromandel Peninusla. After surviving a very stressful drive along a long, crooked, dark road we arrived at the hotel at Opoutere Beach on the Southeast side of the peninsula, which proved to be very well worth ...

... later.... Der-du, der-du, der-du... and a fairly big Marco Shark arrived to have a look. He was beautiful and all silvery purple-blue. Would take a fair nip out of you though aparently. Just arrived (after a slightly fraught journey) in Whangamata on the East-coast of the Coromandel penninsula. Off to buy some gin and tonic to counteract the stress from Mum's backseat driving/yelling. Oh and Peter got stopped for speeding (hee hee!) SO there were a lot of 'I-told-you-so's'

... been the only one staying, which is a shame because it is a wonderful place. At least when the weather cooperates. Which it hasn't really been doing the past couple of days. I did a kayak trip around "Cathedral Cove". The sun came out halfway through the trip making it a great experience. I had planned to return today and take some pictures, but it's been miserable out. Wednesday night we all went out to the local ...

... around Whitianga. Was feeling pretty wrecked (uitgeput) so spent the morning once again in the company of Shelby Foote and the Confederate incursion up the Rio Grande and back... In the afternoon jumped in the Lantis and took a run to Cathedral Cove. Now. Please, please, please have a search on the internet for some decent shots of this place. I'm pretty pleased with my pictures but I am sure there are better ones on the web. Both Cathedral Cove and Stingray Bay are just ...

... for you.

I continued on to Hamilton, centre of the Waikato region. All the shops had black, red and yellow streamers and balloons in the windows, and on the City Council building a large banner with fifteen black, red and yellow striped rugby jerseys hanging on a washing line was unfurled facing the main pedestrian mall. The Waikato Chiefs had made the final of the National Provincial Championship and the game was on in Hamilton in two days. The ...