Hot Water Beach: Day One Hundred and Twenty-Two - Morning (19 February)

From Tairua we drove a few miles up the road to the famous Hot Water Beach, where natural hot springs rise just below the surface.

You don’t have to dig very deep before the hole is filled with water and the trick to making your own spa pool is to dig it close enough to the ocean for the tide to bring in cool seawater. Too close and the “bath” will be cold and too far away and it will be too hot to sit in. Digging a large enough hole in the wet sand is quite hard work!

We’d gone at the time we were told the tide would be ideal (which might explain why there were so many other people there) but didn’t manage to find our own hot spot.

It was interesting to see though.

Barnaby

Tairua: Day One Hundred and Twenty-One - Afternoon (18 February)

We stopped at Karangahake Gorge for a walk and a cup of tea before driving on to the Pacific Harbour Lodge in Tairua where we spent the night.

Barnaby

Tairua: Day One Hundred and Twenty-One - Morning (18 February)

Alison had to leave for work by 7.30am! We had a more leisurely start before leaving Auckland.

First stop was Ngatea where we looked around the beautiful and inventive water gardens. Unlike King Arthur I couldn't pull the sword out of the stone :-).

Barnaby

Auckland: Day One Hundred and Twenty (17 February)

This morning we moved to our other friends in Howick. Alison is a primary school teacher who went travelling several years ago and decided to stay in New Zealand.

We took the dogs – Yogi and Bruno – for a rather muddy walk along the beach before lunch and then visited Villa Maria winery. It is run by one of Alison’s friends so we were treated very well.

We had a lovely relaxed evening together and an early night ready for our long drive to the Coromandel peninsula tomorrow.

Barnaby

Auckland: Day One Hundred and Nineteen (16 February)

We had such a lovely time at Maraetai with Graeme last weekend, we went back there for lunch today. There weren’t many people on the beach because it was overcast but the view was still lovely.

From there we drove to Omara Regional Park and Beachlands via Shelly Bay and Pohutukawa Bay.

In the evening we had a BBQ with our hosts Roger and Anne, their daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

Barnaby

Auckland: Day One Hundred and Eighteen (15 February)

We took a different route down to Auckland from the one we’d followed driving up, although we did pass through Paihia and Whangarei again. The sun was shining on the waterfalls this time.

We drove through some very pretty countryside to Dargaville where we had lunch and stopped for a cup of tea in Wellsford on our way South.

Unfortunately we arrived in Auckland in time for its rush hour: a phenomenon unheard of in most other parts of New Zealand. That meant it took us an hour to get to Howick where we were staying with other friends of Miss Robb’s auntie, who emigrated to New Zealand many years ago. They made us very welcome and helped us to save all our photos to disc so we could clear the camera card ready to take more.

Barnaby

Paihia: Day One Hundred and Seventeen (14 February)

The weather forecast was right that yesterday would be the best day of the week because it poured with rain today :-(. We had a leisurely start after our long day yesterday and didn't drive to the nearby town of Paihia until after lunch.

Paihia overlooks the Bay of Islands from which the region takes its name and you can take boat rides from there to the Hole in the Rock and the settlement of Russell. When the weather is sunny it's a lovely trip because the scenery is stunning but we looked at the bedraggled people getting off the boats and decided to have a Rush Monroe icecream in Paihia instead.

Then we returned to Keri Keri for a last dinner with Margaret and also had drinks with Beverley and Rex. That made it a lovely day even though the weather was more suitable for ducks, like these ornamental ones on Margaret's patio.

Barnaby