Commodore's Lodge Motel Russell

... did pass some scenic beaches. We stopped for a walk on Manapouri beach, a lovely area where several campervans were freedom camping. Further on we stopped for our lunch at another beach near the beautiful Whangaruru harbor. Finally we reached our Top 10 Holiday Park in Russell. Russell was an old whaling seaside town in the 1830s and ...

... Und es gibt Eisburger!

Today we took the ferry to Russell, the former capital of NZ, where James Cook landed in the 17th century or so. Nowadays, it's only a small village with a few houses. But very nice. And you can eat Ice Burger there!

We have been spending the last few weeks in the north of New Zealand and around Auckland. The bay of islands has been fantastically beautiful and we spent a few days sailing, fishing and exploring small coves and beaches. We found one small village called Russell that we particularly liked as it reminded us of Dartmouth in Cornwall, it had even had a ...

... through waves rather than going over them - allowing the weight of up to 7m of water on top of the windscreen! Cool boat. We stayed for two nights in Russell giving us time to eat local oysters and mussells and watch England beat NZ in the Wellington 7's final in a bar - have that! Though the reserved englishman in me (and the bar full of huge Maori's) ensured a muted celebration!

After the last disastrous boat ride snorkeling, I was worried about the tour we had booked the next day thru the bay of islands from the town of Paihia. But everyone reassured me that this boat ride is much smoother and I should not have any problems. I tried to put it out of my mind, but still scrambled around in order to find motion sickness pills! I did this boat trip with Jackie and Jay. We were told that dolphins are often ...

... of the cheapo bus that drives round Manchester doing tours in NZ. Ines came to find me at about 10, and we chatted for a bit before going our separate ways; her, to the forest (different one to yesterday) to hug some trees, me, to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of the island. It's about a three hour drive from Paihia, which sounded doable, but then I discovered the windy windy path through the trees that one is required to ...

... architect hundertwasser, we visited the colorfull toiletbuilding overthere and made our way up to paihia afterwards. There we should take a boat tour up to the hole in the rock and for a swim with the dolphins. Unfortunately there weren't enough people for the boattrip to take place so we decided to make a walkingtrip to the local waterfalls through a mangrove. Trying to spot some Kiwi's along the way. No Kiwi's so far but you've got a better chance in the night so it wasn't that ...

... of country n western weekend here and there was the ends of the festivities going on with bad street performers blocking the roads and singinf along to backing CD's. I tried to avoid this and walked up and down the beach for bit. Then yesterday I went out on a full day sailing tour of the Bay of Islands. It was a great day out, we were on a propper sailing boat and we all got to help out with putting the sails up and down and I even got to steer ...

Our next stop was further up north in the Bay of Island. On our way up we stopped off at Puhoi which is a little village famous for its cheese! We then stopped at Whangarei and had a stroll and some lunch along on a lovely promenade . Just a few km north we stopped again at the Whangarei Falls, they are no Iguazu but nice enough. We got to Puhoi, gateway to the Bay of Islands late ...

... very friendly.

The first thing we did was to take a walk down to the water and around the bay, which gave us some "choice" (as they would say here!) views towards Russell.

As you can see, the weather was good again, so we've had a lucky ending to the year so far. Let's hope it continues!



With our host's help we booked a trip on a sail boat tomorrow ...