After our last night in the campervan we packed our bags and set off to Aukland. We had booked a night in a hotel in Aukland so we could see a bit of the city. We dropped our bags at the hotel before going on to drop off the van near the airport. We could see the harbour this time when we crossed the bridge, although it was a bit cloudy. It was quite sad to leave our campervan that had travelled 4,000 km. through a lot of windy roads and up lots of hills and ta...

The long sandy beach was nice and flat for the morning run but I am not feeling very fit. I think I will be struggling next week at Witney Road Runners. We left the quiet little campsite to go back to Mangawhai Heads which we had visited in the torrential rain a few days ago. It was a lovely spot and quite a few people bodyboarding which is the first place we had seen much body boarding going on. A walk along the beach and black clouds began to build and yes it s...

We were heading back South today towards Aukland so we had time to see a few places we didn't see on the way north when the weather was so bad. The Tutukaka coast has some of the best beaches in New Zealand, so the guide says. I don't know how they judge them but it sounds like a nice job.Being Sunday and sunny, the beaches were actually quite busy by New Zealand standards, one of the beaches was full of surfers but there wasn't a lot happening due t...

We left early to walk into Paihia along the coast. The path was not walkable at high tide so Graham made sure we left very early. We were going out on an 80 foot maxi racing yacht called Lion New Zealand. It was an ex Whitbread Round the World racing yacht and had won the Sydney to Hobart race some years ago, anyway it was very large and very fast. The morning was a bit dull when we arrived in Paihia, the 2 cruise ships were unloading their passengers into the t...

The morning run around Russell wasn't too strenuous, we avoided the hills and saved those for the morning walk. The walk was to the viewpoint over the lovely bay with some lovely old schooners setting sail with day trippers. A very colourful parrot appeared walking up the road, there has been a great variety of birds to see but like Australia other other wildlife has been missing, apart from rabbits. We failed to find a geocache on the nearby beach because th...