Islands and waterfalls

Trip Start Dec 28, 2006
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Trip End Dec 2007


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Monday, May 14, 2007

After a fab nights sleep we woke up at dawn with the sun shining in through the curtains and a beautiful view out across the beach to the Pacific.  It was a bright morning so we immediately went for a stroll along the deserted beach.  After brekkie we saddled up and drove along a winding dirt road to the Goat Island Marine Reserve at Leigh. This is a really beautiful bay with green waters and Goat Island only a couple of hundred yards from the shore.  After another stroll along the beach and up onto some rocks we went on a glass bottomed boat for a tour around the bay.  The water was perfectly clear and we saw many types of fish including the rather large snappers who live up to their name.  We then sailed right into a cave in the island which was pretty exciting and we spotted starfish and crabs.  On we sailed on a fruitless search for stingrays, entertained by our captain with tales of divers mishaps.

Afterwards we headed off for a scenic drive to Whangarei (Fan-ga-ray) where, after parking at a great camper park with every facility including a pool and hot tub, we went for a walk through the forest to see an beautiful waterfall 01 - The space-bed
01 - The space-bed
 .  The path had been blocked off due to flooding but we naughtily continued anyway and ended up crossing a river on stones and clambering up ditches as the bridge had been washed away - maybe it was closed off for a reason.  Part of the walk took us along a gorgeous canopy walkway high up among Kauri trees where T entertained himself by scaring Sara by jumping up and down and rocking the little wooden walkway. 

Back to the park which was fantastic - hope the rest will be this good.  We're really enjoying the van and the freedom to go where we want when we want instead of hanging around looking for buses and lugging around rucksacks.  It's great to be able to go somewhere to see whatever we want to see there then just move on to the next place.
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Comments

skry
skry on Jun 6, 2007 at 10:35AM

Space car?
That doesn't look nearly as Trekkie as the one in the brochure looked. Still it's nice to have automatic warp drive. I know you prefer to have manual, but this would get old after about two sets of 'space lights':

T: 'Ensign Sara, Warp Factor 1'
S: 'Aye aye, Capt'n T'
T: 'Engage!... er... quickly Ensign - Warp Factor 2!'
S: 'Aye aye, Capt'n T'
T: 'Engage, quickly! We're doing 28mph in WF1!!!'

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