We arrived in Hawke's Bay after traveling through some pretty isolated through the mountains roads coming across from Taupo. The sun was shining & we loved the look of this area. Our Nautilus accommodation overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It's a very unusual coastline, rocky beach & no swimming here as the underwater shelf drops away quickly close to the shoreline. Woke yesterday to a very bleak rainy day so we decided to do the rounds of some local wineries....

This morning we left Taupo & headed over to check our the Geyser field area on the road back to Rotorua. The Wai-o-Tapu Wonderland was a national park geothermal area. Quite amazing how the area looked like a moonscape with craters, lime & sulphur hot springs as well as geysers & bubbling mud pools. From there we trekked overland through the mountains down to Napier. There were some huge logging trucks & even bigger steep climbs but was an interes...

Up and all sorted with Hire Car & calling Joyce re arrangements for meeting up on Saturday. On our way by 11am in our little Corolla Hatch. Not being big city drivers we did well to go from Auckland city centre to finding our way onto the Southern Freeway with only a couple of glitches! Amazing countryside with luscious paddocks & a never ending supply of dairy farms & herds of cattle. Our lunch stop was a cheese factory where we bought a few samples ...

A lovely slow day exploring some of the sights of Auckland. After a slow start we took a morning Cruise around Waitemata Harbour. The waterways around Auckland are amazing, huge & wide, obviously the lifeline of this area with it's huge wharves and container ships. We then walked around the trendy yachting area checking out the upmarket apartment accommodation and million dollar yachts. We found the fish markets where we checked out & tasted some lovely f...

Well here we are on our next little adventure on the North Island of New Zealand! We left home on Saturday afternoon & headed to Coolangatta where we met up with Darren & Karen Fonti, a couple we met on our Italy trip last year who were from the Hunter Valley. Was lovely to see them & reminisce about out jaunt around Italy & the fun we had. We also got to meet Chris their son and his fiancé Paige who were a lovely young couple. Yesterday we heade...