Heading up to the Bay of Islands

Friday 28th February

Can you believe it!  We've only got 10 days left in NZ,  where has it all gone.  Today we are heading up to the Bay of Islands to meet up with Carolyn and Martin from Sydney.  It seems our blog inspired them to book a holiday in NZ, so just hope, fingers crossed, that they love it, like we have.  We are spending a couple of days in Paihia at the top of North Island.

So it was a day of driving up from Cambridge, right through Auckland and out again, up route 1 to an area called Northland.  On the way we stopped in Warkworth to catch up with Rach, who I worked with on the Global Challenge 10 years ago.   Of course she is still the same, except married to John and has two children.  John was one of the skippers on the global challenge and he was from the UK.  After the race they decided to come back to NZ where Rach was from.  John is now working for the Coast Guard and still sailing, although sadly we won't see him on this trip, as he is away training people.  We will catch up with Rach again on our back to Auckland.

I wanted to bring these home with me for the garden

Warkworth and the area is lovely and we shall do more driving around it when we drive back.  Rach gave us the heads up where to stay that night, and we arrived in Mangawhai Heads late afternoon.  The camp  was right on the beach, and absolutely gorgeous, thanks so much Rach.

After an evening walk, we munched away on Max's smoked fish,bread and salad looking over the beach..... beat that.  Early night I think, as still a bit tired from last night.

The scenery from our van.

aaaargh!