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
The tourist season is now in ‘full steam ahead’ mode and we can see more coaches and mobile homes passing over the
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
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
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