Thursday last and the rains were back! The Auckland site wasn't encouraging us to stay so we headed north towards the Bay of Islands and got as far as Whangarei which had a lovely harbour and pleasant feel about it. The falls were quite pretty, the following morning, as we left to travel on up to "The Bay" and the journey was full of twists and turns as we slowly threaded our way up the coast. The photos won't do it justice but arriving in Russell was quite sp...

Tuesday started rainy again but soon cleared to being just overcast and we started up the east side of the Coromandel Peninsula. We called in at Hot Water Beach (where you can rent a spade and dig a whole (on the beach), sit in it and receive a hot water surprise from underneath you. Unfortunately we arrived at HIGH tide, and you can only do it 1 hour either side of LOW tide! Then we went on to the start of the walk to Cathedral Cove but did not try the whole ...