Bay of Islands & beyond
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2008
1
11
25
Trip End
Dec 07, 2008
Leigh, North Island, New Zealand
Friday, November 14, 2008
Was surprised to see the cows outnumbered the sheep!! But the landscape was beautiful - lots of rolling hills which made the landscape look slightly like a giant golf course - at least that was my view. We were going to be staying in a place called Russell, which we reached via the car ferry (due to my poor navigating when I completed missed the cross country road). The place is a really beautiful quaint town on the bay.
The holiday park we were staying in is like a luxury park with fab facilities (this is what my view of luxury has become already!). We decided to go out on a full day sightseeing cruise, with an option to swim with dolphins (after my experience with the fish in Moorea I wasn't too keen on being nudged by a dolphin). The tour followed the cream route which was that taken by the boats collecting the milk, etc. It's wasn't long before we came across some dolphins - which was great as they swan alongside (cue lots of movie of sea with the odd fin) - they had baby dolphins - it took a while but I finally saw a baby one - soooooooo cute.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't really the best, but the Bay of Islands is really beautiful, even with a gale & light drizzle. As we continued our tour the boat got a tip off about some whales in the area so we took off to find them and incredibly saw 2 blue whales. What a trip this was turning out to be. Now photos of a large humpback and water from the blowholes. No tail action as the water wasn't deep enough. The trip continued with more dolphon spotting and rain.
That evening we went across to Paihai which was on the opposite side of the bay - to be honest not much to offer and we only stayed there until there was another ferry to take us back - where amazingly we saw a stingray in the harbour - what a marine spotting day this was turning out to be.
The following day we left for Goat Island which involved more corners and even gravel roads (the van loves those). Our holiday camp was right on the beach and we were told that we could go out to the rocks and collect 50 green lipped mussels per person, if the Maori allowed it - not sure where there wer to ask so we just walked along the beach.
Goat Island is the first marine park in NZ and you can see fish swimming from the rocks - we saw blue moamoa and snapper - great place to go snorkelling. There was meant to be a glass bottomed boat, unfortunately this wasn't running.
Next stop the surfing beaches......
xxx
