New Zealand - Bay of Islands

Rock and Roll - cheap pizza then bed for eight...it was a long drive and to be fair - Auckland on a Friday Night is raucous - or it is just below where we stayed. Coupled with a random 'ocean sounds' alarm coming on at silly o'clock we were tired!

As we were next to the treaty grounds we thought that would be a good start to the day. There's a quality cafe (Waikokopu Cafe) in the grounds where we stocked up on another traditionally healthy breakfast! Well, toast for me and a Whaler's breakfast for Alice...with a bonus (and rather delicious hash brown). The walk up introduced us to a number of funky birds including fantail's mobbing Alice, Tui's making all sorts of random noises and a couple of parrots.

We wandered through Waitangi and checked out the Maori Meeting Hall, Treaty House and Waka though the latter was out of bounds for building work. Interesting site to visit and surprisingly understated. Still, we enjoyed it and from there headed off to see Haruru Falls.

GOTD was definitely the Mangroves - really other-worldly environment which was great to walk through. The 10km round trip was excellent. We saw loads of wildlife and in particular a load of cormorant type birds nesting in trees alongside the walkway. No doubt we'll bore you with hundreds of pictures when we get back.

After that it was the sedate ferry across the Bay to Russell. Really lovely place but out of season somewhat like a ghost town. As it was Sunday afternoon there wasn't much sign of life but we had a relaxing time savouring the views.


Following morning we had booked onto the Dolphin safari boat. Within twenty minutes we were in the middle of a pod - a couple of males were doing all sorts of jumps. We managed to capture dozens of splashes but not much else on the camera. When we sped off the whole pod started wake surfing - it was amazing to watch.

The rest of the trip was more sedate with a journey to the 'hole in the rock' and a stop of briefly on one of the islands - home to the very rare and endangered Dottrel. We had hoped to get to swim with some dolphins but the pods we found either had youngsters or weren't in the mood to play. We'd all got dressed up in wetsuits and flippers so at least we looked like idiots for a good twenty minutes before being disappointed. May try again later in the trip.

To make up for the disappointment I drove Alice the hour to Mangonui for the 'world famous' fish and chips. Not sure if the claim is justified but they were tasty. Main issue was more the absence of open petrol stations. There's never one when you have none left! Who's fault was that...?!

Paihia was akin to Russell only in being quiet. The season's yet to start so lots of places were just closed. Choices for catering were therefore somewhat limited. We've still not got the self catering thing sorted as book hotels with no facilities. Not an overly pretty place but lovely outlook and access to some wonderful scenery and activities.

We really enjoyed the Bay of Islands and were therefore really not necessarily looking forward to driving all the way to Coromandel the next day. The good news was that when we awoke to the dawn chorus (we've still not properly adjusted) it was miserable and grey with fairly steady rain. We set off to see some wonderful toilets - but in the end with the bad weather and lack of decent signage we didn't bother stopping in Kawakawa and instead headed straight for brunch in Whangarei - Cafe Deluca - very good! Suitably refreshed we pushed on to Coromandel.

New Zealand - On route to Bay of Islands

Heading North, we took Route 1 North before the Route 12 round the West coast (Mr Lawson's top tip). There's some amazing rural scenery with mountains in the distance, regular glimpses of sea or mangroves and for me the GOTD (Geek of the day) moment was getting excited about the Tree Ferns...they are just brilliant!


We stopped at Matakohe to visit the Kauri Museaum - interesting if somewhat rambling set up of early pioneers to the area who made a living from timber and digging for gum (amber). Pretty much sounded like the wild west but without the saloons. Also points to the quality of the Kauri tree timber and why it's now desperatelt being protected to stop the remaining bits of forest being destroyed. It was fairly wet and miserable again on the way up though so we didn't do any of the little walks.


We did disembark in the Waipoua Forest to have a look at Tane Mahuta - a tree of no great height but significant girth (no sniggers at the back). Reputed to be the biggest known Kauri tree in New Zealand. As it's still early season and it was a little damp, it was pretty quiet.








Then it was off through a road totally enclosed with native forests through the twists and turns before emerging near Hokianga Harbour.

Again our forray out from the car was limited - mainly as it started to lash down and was blowing something of a gale. Pity really as on a clear day you can imagine it being a beautiful spot. From there we headed East and finished our five hour journey in our destination of Paihia. We were looking forward to the peace and quiet. Therefore delighted to see our hotel was the finishing point for the North Island Rally Championship. Technically the Mean Green Machine was the first to get the chequered flag so we felt we earnt the shower of champagne we somehown managed to end up in.

New Zealand - Auckland

Well, after another good nights flying -with no sleep - we arrived somewhat knackered and delerious in Auckland. We managed to pick up the hire car - Janine originally named it the Hulk but we've now called it the Mean Green Machine. Tony will be jealous, it's an XF...well, the registration is anyway! Only 176,000 km on the clock. We had to walk round it to find those bits not knicked and scratched and mark them on the hire form!

We pretty much found our hotel with minimal effort though couldn't check in so went to the Bluestone Rooms on Tony and Sheila's recommendation. Beautiful! Fizzy but refreshing beer...lovely food as well. (I'm not listing prices...) We eventually got checked in and went for a power nap. I left J9 to it after a while and wandered round (and round and round) until finally got back. My sense of direction must have gone the same way my sleep has. Pleased I did mind as it was a lovely sunny afternoon.

Finished the day drinking in Bluestones again - we didn't bother with dinner as lunch had been so big. Met a Birkenhead bar manager who introduced his sister and friend. They led us a little astray.

Following morning -thankfully throwing it down (and me not doing the opposite) - we didn't do much. Janine made me go up the Skytower though - great views of the incoming clouds but I didn't half feel queasy! Afternoon was just chilling before meeting my old school pal Chris (Frame) and Helen. Was good to say hello and be shown some more sights - including a quality recommendation for breakfast the following morning - Ronnie's. Also a popular spot for sparrows. They're clearly much brighter than those in the UK as generally use the door rather than throwing themselves at full tilt into a window!

Then we hit the road...scenic route up to Bay of Islands.

Hong Kong

We arrived in the sweltering and somewhat oppressive heat safe and sound. Investing in Octopus cards and with Janine's expert guidance we made the bus to town. Naturally Janine was also underimpressed with my repeated immaturity! Seeing Kok's and Fook's everywhere was really funny for me - less so for others.

Our arrival coincided with the National Day holiday week - there was loads of cool lanterns and lights and a 'fire' dragon. I have captured some wonderful pictures of the back of various heads and other people's camera's - it was an enormous scrum of people getting very excitable about a lad on a low tech illuminated shopping trolley banging a drum. Also had lots of chaps carrying a lot of lit jos-sticks attached to a dragon shape. Couple with big balls (if you'll pardon the expression) to represent the fire.

Jet lag kind of consumed us the following day and we were very slow into action...we visited the bird, flower and goldfish markets and sought beads in vain. Ended the day watching the light spectacular and riding the Star ferry - can't say the light spectacular was truly amazing but we were amused by a French woman assaulting various Chinese nationals who had the nerve to impede her view of the harbour. She really laid into one poor woman.


Day three in the Big Budda house and we had a cool ride in cable car gondola up to the Budda and temple. It was pretty big - suitably named we thought. Unfotunately it's succumbing to Hong Kong's push to commercialise everything. It was like the entrance to Alton Towers at Ngong Ping 'village'.

Later we were also a little underimpressed with the monstorsity of the giant Wok on top of Victoria Peak. The tram ride was fun - with the usual scrum and argy bargey with the hordes of Chinese tourists. Seems there idea of a day out is superglueing a Canon or Nikon to their foreheads or hands and looking at the view of the world through a lens (Janine might say I did the same - did get a bit excitable with the camera at the Harbour) then generally getting in the way before settling down to whatever shopping/cafes are within 50m. We didn't try Tony's Hey Yu joke though did consider it.

Highlight for a geek like me was the MTR - how cool that is...it's just so clever!

Copy watch requests - 27
Fine Tailor suit requests - 13
Copy handbag for the lady requests - 900 (or so it felt)

Purchases made - 0 (but Harbour City was only discovered with less than two hours before we had to be at the airport - success I'd say! Again, view point may differ.)

Preparations

Having watched border patrol on Living I'm somewhat terrified of not getting into the country. I have therefore hoovered my bag to remove any unwanted organic matter - will be disinfecting my shoes and walking gear later...I'm hoping my cbeebies garden will be ok to go with me though...

So what do you pack for 32 c heat and 75% humidity that's also ideal for 12 c? Don't rightly know but we are the proud owners of some shiny padlocks for our bags so as long as we remember the numbers we'll have a choice...if not, for everything else, there's Mastercard!

Introduction

Oh how close it is now...at the time of writing it's five days from flight night.

Alice is geting excited - mainly as it's a break from work - but also as we're heading off to New Zealand via Hong Kong. She's already dreamt I've forced her to eat pigs trotters so that's one less barrier. We've also been told canyon swing is fine - just don't tell Sheila.

Clearly there's copious amounts of ironing, packing, unpacking, repacking and generally panicking about out of date passports to come.

It is our intention to share some of the photos and experiences on a brief blog - it will be technology, time, wine and memory dependent so please don't expect too much.