Today started slowly and we left the campsite at the crack of 10:30. We were woken by the girls talking at around 8am. The day is overcast and not inviting.

Last night on the way to the loo I was scared by a low growling noise, on my return I was amused to realise it was someone snoring. At this point it is worth saying that the stars here are amazing ! They are alien skies so they do look different but there is no real light pollution so they are so bright.

Anyway our late start gave Alex and Elizabeth a chance to play with the girl on the next pitch called Chloe.

We headed into Paihia and parked in the same place as yesterday. I think it is possible to stay overnight here but for us staying on sites is better. Anyway, walked across to the ferry terminal to catch a ferry to Russell. The trip across was nice and relaxed and cost $12. Russell itself has quite a colonial feel to it. I noticed that one building proclaimed it used to be an ale and w**** house although neither activity was still ongoing. We spent some time in the DoC centre and saw some information on native birds and animals. I bought a couple of bits and saw the people from the campsite there. After a while and a short wander around we sat on the seafront and ate our packed lunch in a typically British summer way, in cloud with gusty winds. There were a lot of gulls about with the net result that Elizabeth failed to eat anything and Alex ate so quickly we were scared she would choke.

At 1:20 we walked to the jetty to meet the Great Sights Dolphin tour. We saw a member of staff who explained that two tours had been merged, so we were going to do a four hour cruise instead of our planned 3 hour one. As we were part of the second pick up all the good seats on the boat were taken. However, Elizabeth quickly fell asleep on David which pleased him as she has recently just been having the screaming hab dabs whenever he has held her. Alex and I explored the boat. Alex found her sea legs pretty quickly and really enjoyed it when the boat went really fast and even more so when it got choppy. Alex spent most of her time being hugged by david on the foredeck. The trip took us to a couple of bays before heading up to where the dolphins had been sighted. We saw a pod of bottle nosed dolphins who played around ours and another boat. We kept seeing them rise out of the water, play and catch fish. I initially thought they had been throwing fish out the them but it became very clear that this was not the case. Alex loved it, Elizabeth slept through it all. The boat then went on through increasingly rough weather to Cape Breton, hole in the rock very impressive ! On another day they can get through the hole but today the weather was so rough it was unsafe to do so. After looking through from one side we moved to the other side which I think is far more impressive. It was also very easy to see why the Captain had chosen not to go through as the swell was a couple of metres and with the compression as they went through the hole it was filling nearly half of it, or so it appeared.

When we left the hole I went and sat with David and Alex as we went to an island for a stopover. We could have returned immediately but I am glad we did not. The place we had coffee was Zane Grey's resort and it had a wide beach with a lot of shells, it had yet to reach proper shingle stage. The jetty had a Maori inspired gate as you stepped off it. We were there for an hour and I went paddling which Elizabeth really did not want to do but as she refused to stay with David she had to. Once in she was fine and enjoyed it. Alex enjoyed playing in and drawing in the sand. Alex also learnt to chase birds, a great step forward !

We got the ferry back at 4:45 and I had a chat with one of the staff members and got some advice on our day tomorrow. We arrived back in Paihia at 5:30ish. We went back to the van for the start of much faffing about filling with diesel and water, emptying toilets and grey water. All in all this meant dinner was late. The girls played and played on the park too. They were both exhausted to the extent Alex could barely stay awake to eat, Elizabeth scoffed but then she had had no lunch as she was far too busy singing at the birds.

We now have three or so travelling days before our next stop for more than once night.