We made it to our flight to Aukland on time, we managed to get a car when we got to Aukland too (Bigger than our first, though only slightly)! We managed to find Christy’s place without a problem, and we managed to make it out of Aukland and up the coast with Tim Dallimore to spend the night celebrating his impending marriage.
North Island so far has been fairly fun. It is very different to South Island, being flatter, more densly populated and (thankfully) having less sandflies.
So the night before last, saw the 4 boys become 5, heading north on a little adventure. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant called the “ship and anchor”, where we learned that “Black and Tan” doesn’t separate well in the antipedes, and that inflatable chickens receive strange looks from waitresses….
We continued North to a place whose name escapes me. We found a comfortable motel that had beds for 5, we found a comfortable bottle of Port that had enough contents for 5 (almost) and we found a comfortable game of “Emperor and Scum” (the official sponsor of “Boys Tour 2005”) to keep us entertained for the night!
The next morning we headed out to Goat Island, famous for their snorkling. We wouldn’t be put off by rain clouds and wind, and continued on. Despite the miserable weather, and small issues with visability underwater, the snorkeling was awesome! I got to see a Stingray that was as big as me, and I watched some colourful fish that would have been about 10kg eating an octopus who was making his (last) feelings known by spurting out all of his ink! It was really a pretty cool time.
We dropped Tim back off home, then headed back out in the direction of the Bay of Islands. I would love to chat more about our Kayaking today (in the end only a day trip) that included paddling right up under the lip of a waterfall, but my time is just about out on this machine.
Look forward to the next, and final installment (God willing) entitled “The reason for the season” as the wedding, and actual purpose for our being here, draws near!!!!