After breakfast we packed up and said goodbye once again to the Sky City Grand. We drove across the harbour bridge but instead of turning right to Devonport we turned left and found the Beach Road which took us right along the coast through many beautiful little bays and beaches including Milford beach, Mairangi Bay and Brown's Bay. We came to a bit of a dead end at Long Bay regional park. It is a huge nature reserve and we drove in thinking that we might find a way through but not so. What we did find was two thirds of the population of New Zealand enjoying a picnic on the Labour Day holiday! Great to see them all enjoying the sunshine.

We retraced our steps a little way and soon found a road to take us gradually north. We stopped at Orewa for some lunch then continued on along the coast through Waiwera. It was a lovely day for travelling slowly and following roads simply to see where they went. Along one such road we found the small town of Puhoi. We read that it is the country's earliest Catholic Bohemian settlement and we were surprised to find how busy and thriving it was with plenty of people enjoying a drink at the Puhoi Tavern and visiting the honey centre and cheese factory. Obviously another very good place to spend Labour Day!

We explored some other interesting looking roads leading to nowhere other than regional parks and pretty, secluded bays and beaches down dead end roads. We mistakenly thought that we could get through all the way along the coast to Matakana but this was not the case and so we had to join the motorway for a short distance as far as Warkworth and make our way in from there.

With the help of directions we had taken from their website, we found Takatu Lodge with no trouble at all. We were shown to a lovely room looking straight out over the vineyards with a fantastic view of the sea and islands in the distance. Our host, Heather, booked us a table for dinner at a restaurant in Matakana Village and we went down for an early dinner. Here the fun started. We went to the restaurant and it was dark and the doors locked. Yes, definitely closed!! Obviously the restaurant had closed for Labour Day, but surely we had booked!? It turned out later that Heather had left a message on the answer phone but obviously there was nobody there to answer!!

Anyway, we went upstairs to a lovely little bar called the Vintry and enjoyed some wine and snacks served by Nicky, the friendly lady behind the bar. All's well that ends well!