Auckland & the Bay of Islands
Waving goodbye to David's mum & dad we boarded the bus for the 6 hour journey to Auckland where we were to spend a couple of nights.
According to the map, the hostel wasn't too far up the road…though what we hadn't realised was the number of hills in Auckland and our hostel was on one of the steepest. Walking with your rucksack is not fun at the best of times, but its even less so uphill. Nevermind.
After a morning spent doing 'admin' (swapping books, posting stuff home and sorting out flights) we took the ferry across to Devonport where we spent a happy couple of hours watching the world go by.
The next day we picked up our hire car with only a slight bit of fuss when we discovered that the car they were going to give us didn't have a back shelf for the boot. Not very clever if you're going to be leaving your bags in there. A different car and 20 minutes later we were heading north to the Bay of Islands.
A detour took us through Kawakawa to see Hundertwasser's famous public toilet (avid readers may remember that we went to Hundertwasser's museum in Vienna). He lived here for a number of years and this was his first building to open in the southern hemisphere. It was good to see it (and use it!) after seeing the model of it in Vienna.
Catching the car ferry across the bay we arrived in the incredibly picturesque town of Russell in the Bay of Islands. We were lucky enough to be standing in the right place when a local boat brought in their catch of the day to be weighed. It was a huge stripy Marlin which was between 5 and 6ft in length and weighed a massive 110kg! (for the record this is heavier than David and I wouldn't fancy pulling him over the side of a boat!)
After watching the amazing sunset we had a great meal in a restaurant on the waterfront - thanks Matt for the delayed birthday present! (and Jess for the recommendation!)
The following day saw us out on the water on the 'Phantom,' a 50ft racing yacht. Sailing through the Bay was beautiful and we saw penguins swimming along the surface of the water.
Stopping for lunch at Cable Bay on the largest of the 144 islands we were able to swim from the boat to shore and walk up the hill on the island for some good views of the surrounding bays.
After lunch we were all captivated by the drama that surrounded us. A wedding was taking place on the beach of the island and having watched the chairs being set up and the guests being brought across from the mainland we waited for the bride to arrive. The appointed time of the wedding came and went and the party were looking nervously out to the water when the bride finally arrived by boat a good 45 minutes late. As David said, he wouldn't have waited!
Meanwhile on the large commercial tour boat next door the crew was undertaking some frantic counting as they realised that they were 2 people short. The dinghy was going back and forth to the island and crew members were running up and down hills in search of their missing people. Unfortunately we never found out what happened as our skipper decided it was time to move on. Gave us something to look at anyway!
Next stop is further north to Ninety Mile beach…