Our New Zealand Adventure

It's been a while since I've written on this blog but I'm using it now to record our trip to New Zealand so family and friends can see a bit of what we're getting up to! We've been away over 3 weeks already but time and Internet availability have been limited so we have some catching up to do!

We had a brief stopover in Hong Kong for 2 nights in a hotel room on the island overlooking the harbour. The low cloud stopped us taking the tram up to the Peak for the views so we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon. Will hopefully get up to the Peak on our return stopover.

Boating Hong Kong style

Having arrived in Auckland we were joined by Joe and Katie who flew up from Nelson to join us for the weekend. 

They treated us to cream teas in the 360 degree revolving Sky Tower restaurant

We will catch up with them again soon when we make our way down to Nelson on South Island. We spent the next 11 days in the company of lovely friends we met boating in France last summer, Ian and Cynthia on Winedown. They took us up to their beach house in Mangawhai, North of Auckland and shared their home, friends, family and car with us. 

Lovely meal at the french restaurant (of course) The Frog and Kiwi. 

You may have heard on the news about Cyclone Pam which devastated the Pacific island of Vanuatu and threatened to strike New Zealand. We all battened down the hatches but fortunately the worst of the storm passed us by, although we did get very strong gusts and swells at sea. The following morning  six of us we went on a long beach walk to see the after effects of the storm passing.

Pete and Chris messing about!

Perfect for surfing

Ian and Cyn kindly lent us one of their cars so we were able to head further north to the Bay of Islands for a few days. 

We went out on a local cruise boat where we were lucky enough to see a pod of 20 dolphins swimming around our boat.

The cruise boat skipper braved the swell and took us through the famous Hole in the Rock.

Ian and Cyn had planned to take us out on their yacht but the threat of cyclone Pam had delayed it. They rang us to say the weather forecast looked good so we should get back as soon as we could to get down to their yacht in Gulf Harbour Marina in Auckland for dinner that evening. The next morning in fine weather we sailed out to Waihike Island.

We have had a lot of new experiences on this trip and fishing from the back of a boat anchored at sea was one of them.

Being rowed over in a dinghy to a fellow boater's yacht for girlie drinks was another!

Next morning we took the dinghys ashore to Waiheke Island.

The three of us girls went shopping whilst the boys found another pursuit.

 

Having experienced a bit of a rocky night we moved to Woody Bay early evening where it was a bit more sheltered. Ian and Cyn wanted us to experience going to a beach and smoking and eating the fish we had caught. Robinson Crusoe stuff!

Carried our G&Ts over with us of course!

Rowing back to the boat as the sun went down

We said goodbye to these lovely people who have made our first visit to NZ so special and collected our home for the next 5 weeks, a campervan called ITZA BREEZE.  Another arrangement via kiwi boaters met in France, and another 'first' for us. 

We started our journey South, first stop Rotorua, home to spurting geysers, steaming hot springs and exploding mud pools. We had booked a zip line canopy tour the first morning, amazing experience. Of our group of 10 we were the eldest by about 30 years but the only ones to go for it and zip along upside down on the final zip line. Must get more daring(or daft) as we get older!

We moved on later in the day and spent the night at a wonderful motor camp with 6 thermal spa pools of varying degrees of heat from 39 to 44 degrees C to bathe in.

We are now heading further south to Wellington where we will catch a ferry on Saturday morning to Šouth Island and drive to Nelson to catch up with Joe and Katie again. 

A well deserved beer at the end of the day, parked up on the shores of Lake Taupo.