Monday 5th January- Let’s get out’a here!

It was a beautiful morning again with the sun beaming down as we left the house for our morning walk. In front of the Taipa Resort Hotel a large tourist coach was disgorging people for their morning coffee and loo break prior to travelling farther up the coast to Cape Reinga, the most northern point in New Zealand. Most of the people seemed out of place in their semi winter clothes i.e. long trousers and coats considering the current warm weather.

The tourist season is now in ‘full steam ahead’ mode and we can see more coaches and mobile homes passing over the Taipa Bridge every day. Yesterday there was actually a queue of about 12 vehicles waiting to cross, very impressive.

Anyway, we returned from our walk and had breakfast and were thinking about going out somewhere, but not sure where, when Robin arrived to have a chat and a coffee. Robin left after about one hour and then we headed to Ahipara via Kaitaia where we placed our order for the camping equipment we need for the South Island. This is for collection towards the end of this month.

We had visited Ahipara once before when we first arrived but it was a grey day and we did not fully explore the area which we did today. We also visited Shipwreck Cove and looked at the holidaymakers on the beach and swimming whilst the Caravan Holiday Park looked quite full. On leaving Ahipara we headed south through hills well covered by forests and fields towards the bay of Herekino where the HMS Osprey foundered in 1846. If you want a quiet place to live I guess this could be it as we drove for about 20 kilometres and only saw three cyclists and one car and a few sheep and cows. There are no street lights and so if you wanted to look up at the stars, this is a great place to do it.

The beach at Ahipara is not great but it is the southern end of the famous ninety mile beach which is actually ninety kilometres long and good for use by 4x4 and those vehicles which can handle sand. There were a number of quad bikes, motor track bikes on the beach whizzing up and down. There was also a rented campervan filled with Germans who had completely ignored all the signs about not taking rented vehicles onto the beach and only going on the beach if you know what to do. They were stuck well into the sand but a friendly Maori couple in a 4x4 pulled them out. They did look a little embarrassed.

We headed back to our favourite ice cream shop in Awanui which gives you ‘more ice cream for your bucks than anywhere else’ which Noel then proceeded to drip down his clean t-shirt, much to Jennifer’s annoyance. His plan next time is to choose ice-cream which the same colour as his t-shirt is so he hopes that they have a variety which has red and white stripes.

When we finally arrived home it was a little late but sufficient time for Jennifer to cook a Chinese dinner of Chicken with mushroom and rice with bean sprouts, cabbage and of course a nice glass of Shiraz to wash it all down.

Again, the sunset was fantastic and this is now getting to be a bore reporting it and so will not be mentioned again, well at least not until tomorrow.

We watched the evening news which seemed to be full of problems in the Middle East, the economy going down, and even a famous New Zealand rugby player being caught in the rip tide of a bay near Auckland and dragged out to sea and not seen since. The Australian news reported that there are more sharks in their water now mainly do to the efforts to improve the cleanliness of the seas from effluent etc and the result has been there are more fish and as a result more sharks feeding closer to shore. So swimming off the coast of OZ is not to be recommended unless you are in a controlled bay. We think the same may also be true in NZ as well so will have to watch out. Rumour has it that there are as many sharks here as in the East End of London.