Sunday 15 January 2012

Bay of Islands

After breakfasting at Ronnies (no apostrophe) bakery in Auckland we picked up our car from Budget. The women checking is in were very nice, except the more senior insisted on telling us that she had been taken by her son to the rugby world cup final and that she did not expect to see a day like it in her lifetime - I said we were English....... The Kiwis seem quite keen to talk rugby!

We took the advice of our taxi driver who had taken us to the car hire site (he was Dutch, married to a "London Girl", had children living in the US, Europe and NZ - a typical NZ family) and drove up the west coast to the Bay of Islands. The east coast route is more direct but this took us through ancient Kauri forests (the equivalent of giant redwoods) and groves of giant tree ferns. Scenery was magnificent.

Late afternoon we arrived at Paihia and the Blue Pacific Apartments. We were supposed to have a studio but were upgraded to a 2 bedroom apartment. The view outside is directly onto the bay (photos soon). Sue was delighted to be able to swim in the South Pacific, even if only for a short while.After the sun went down we frolicked in the hot tub (direct views over the bay) and looked at the many stars after they came out.

Life is terrible.

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