Our way down the east coast (Dec 2-10)

On the 2nd we left Auckland for the Coromandel Peninsula where we stayed for 2 nights. We visited the tiny town of Tairua to see Trevor's grandparents old home up on the hill, the beach where he played as a child during his visits and the small downtown street where he would pickup his daily kiwi burger.

View from Paku Hill in Tairua

Beach near Trevors grandfathers home in Tirua

We also visited Hot Water Beach that day at low tide and rented a small shovel. We initally started digging near the outside of a group of other people sitting in hot water holes. The hole we were digging was cold but we thought if we dug far enough down the cold hole would fill with hot water. While Trevor dug I took a short wander around to try and find a better spot and came across water coming up in the sand. I burned my feet a bit not realizing the water would be the 64 degrees celcius it was. We ended up digging a hole at the bottom of the beach where the hot spring water would mix with the cold ocean water to make the perfect temperature hole.

Hiking trails short drive from Hot Water Beach

Hot Water Beach

We moved on to Whakatane, Gisborne and Napier for the following couple of nights. It was alot of driving as we took the long scenic coast road the long way around and unfortunatley we didnt have the time to see all that each town had to offer.

Kiwi 360 - Trevors heads poking out the top right

Kiwi vines at Kiwi 360

Views from the drive

Rock slide that people would body board down

Trevor underneath the waterfall

Our last 2 nights on the North Island were spent in Wellington. There we got in a short but lovely visit with Trevor's Aunt & Uncle, Bill and Ngaire. We also got to see Trevor's dads childhood home and elementary school.

View of downtown Wellington from across the bay

Downtown Wellington

We watched a xmas concert in downtown Wellington

Santa flew by to waive hello during the xmas carol concert

One more look at Auckland (Nov 17-Dec 2)

On our way back to Auckland we stopped in Murawai Beach which is the local black sand beaches. It was extremely windy that day but we were able to find a spot near the sand dunes that was nice. The dark sands were too hot to walk barefoot on for more than a moment on. After sitting in the sun for an hour or so watching the giant waves we took the short hike up the hill to view the Gannet Colony. There were 1000’s of huge birds perched on the rock ledges below sitting with their chicks.

Murawai Beach

One of several crowded rocks

Star fish Trevor found in pool in the rock

Sinker Trevor found in the shallows... by stepping on it and putting a couple of holes in his feet!

 On our way back to Auckland we also took a drove through the town of Whenuapai were Trevors grandpa and grandma had lived at one time. Trevor was hoping to jog is memory a bit there but it didn’t happen and he is not certain if he had been to their house in this town before or not.

We stayed that evening in Auckland and spent the evening going through old photos of Trevor’s last trip to NZ and old photos of Rex and his brothers. The following day we did very little... I know I know… we are only here once and we should be out experiencing it. But we (especially me) needed a break from the constant driving around etc. Ron did take us for a short drive to view the different homes that he had lived in with his parents and brothers as teens in Auckland which was pretty neat as well. We made a Canadian style dinner for Ron, Louise and the boys. We made… Beef Dip! J They don’t have beef dip here!!! The boys sooo loved it but kept calling the au jus “Jew” hahaha. Pretty sure they are going to ask Louise to make it for dinner.

Ron and Trevor at the Rugby Club

Ron and Trevor looking through old photos

Photo from Jerri, Rex, Trevor & Ryan's last family visit to NZ

The next two days we spent downtown Auckland. On Thursday, we returned our rental car and was dropped off on the top of Queenstreet, which is a trendy street full of all kinds of shops that heads down to the water. Once we reached the water we walked along the Viaduct Canal which was a beautiful area full of sail boats and surrounded by little restaurants.

On Friday, we hoped on the free shark shuttle to Kelly Tarlton’s – which is a really great aquarium that also happens to have penguins. The aquarium has a long tunnel with a moving track through it so that you can stand on the track and look up at all the different types of sharks, fish and manta rays in the aquarium above you. One shark was swimming alongside us giving us the eye; I think he was hungry! Unfortunately we were too late too late to take the shark shuttle back into downtown Auckland so we decided to walk the 6+ km’s along the bays back. It was beautiful but extremely windy!! That evening we stopped at a couple of local restaurants for a bite and a drink. Our last stop that evening was at Movenpick - The Art of Swiss Icecream . Yummm! But boy did I overeat that evening… 

Shark Shuttle

Shark Tunnel

Neat fish we saw in one of the aqauriums

The dessert I got at Movenpick

Xmas decorations are finally going up around Auckland

Ron, Louise & their youngest son Maddy

Trev and I with Victor during a break in his cricket game

Ben playing cricket (Ron & Louise's oldest son)

More Mangawahi with Gary & Sarah (Nov 25-26)

Uncle Gary took us on a day long Tiki Tour to see the sites in the towns and areas surrounding Mangawhai. We visited Pakiri Camp Ground & Beach first, where Rex and his brothers would camp and party hard as teens. Leigh, a small town with a beautiful boat dock/fishing bay. Mahurangi Bay, a beautiful bay, where we had the pleasure of meeting Rex’s aunty Margaret.   The town of Matakana where Sarah & Gary own The Cream of Matakana – an eclectic gift shop full of all kinds of interesting items. The town of Wakworth, where we saw a GIANT Kauri tree.

Trevor with his uncle Gary at Pakiri Beach

Old sign at the Pakiri Camp Ground

Views from the drive

Boat dock - Leigh

On Margaret Lister's drive way gate

View from Margaret's deck - Trevor, Gary & Margaret

 

Trevor and I with Margaret. She was trying to hang onto us and stand on her tippy-toes to look tall too :)

Strange patterns in the rock covered with mussels. -  Bay down the road from Margaret's home

Giant Kauri Tree in Walkworth

The Cream of Matakana - Sarah & Gary's store with the cutest cows out front

Sarah & Gary in their store



Time for another delicous dinner at Sarah & Gary's

And the next day a final dinner in Mangawhai at Kim & Arian's new home away from home



"F" as in Whangarei (Nov 22-24)

We decided to head up to the northern part of the island to see the sights. Our first stop was in Whangarei where we viewed did a walk from the Whangarei Falls, through the Canopy walk and to another waterfall.  

The Whangarei Falls are 26metres high

Creek running from the falls

The canopy walk is built up 14metres high in the jungle (Trev's standing half way down the walkway)

Large Kauri Tree along canopy walk

Second waterfall along walk

Our next destination was a small village called Russel in the beautiful Bay of Islands area. The road out to Russel was incredibly curvy road full knuckle gripping switchbacks. Finally we came to an valley area with a straight portion of road where we decided to pull over to take some photos of some spotted pigs. We turned the ignition off to ensure we didn’t scare them away and a moment later attempted to restart the car. Unfortunately the batter died it that 1 minute of having the car off… and off course it started to rain, we weren’t in good cell service, the cell phone started to die and some bulls walked over mooing like they were gonna trample us… We tried calling AA but they did not know where we were (we later found out there are 2 towns with the same name and they had thought we were in the other one) and all of the people that stopped for us did not have jumper cables. Finally a gal pulled over and offered to drive back to her nearby farm to get cables and come back to boost us. Thank goodness for her! An hour or so later we were back on the road.

View from the drive

We stayed the night in Russel. It was an absolutely lovely town but of course it was a bit rainy. We decided it wasn’t great weather to do the island boat tour we were hoping to take around the Bay of Islands.

Oldest church in NZ, built in 1836, with surrounding cemetary in the small town of Russel.

Birds of paradise at our motel

 

View from our motel

The following morning we left Russel via ferry to Paihia and drove to Keri Keri. Keri Keri was a nice town full of all kinds of little shops and sites. Our favorite stop there was the Makana chocolate factory! Yumm! I also enjoyed my first two frozen coke’s from Mcdonalds! They don’t have 7-11 type places with slurpies… which I have been craving since we arrived… but they do have frozen coke at MD’s which is basically a coke slurpy. We also went to the Stone Store (oldest stone building in NZ), Kemp House (oldest wood building still standing in NZ), Rewa’s Village (recreation of a Maori village) and Rainbow Fall’s.

Stone Store

Trevor attempting to get in the cave behind the Rainbow Falls waterfall (he is on the right)

Rainbow Falls

Our second night spent up north was in Kaitaia. This was not exactly our favorite town.. not touristy at all and a bit run down. This was the first night that we did not ask to view a room before paying for it… bit of a mistake! Our hotel was really pretty old and gross. While sitting on the bed I felt a huge lump in the mattress. I stuck my hand under the bedsheet thinking it was a spring stuck out of the mattress… it was a pair of old sunglasses! I didn’t sleep much that night.. And we had no luck finding a restaurant so it was Subway that night.. The next day we were off to the nearby "90 Mile Beach". It is actually only around 60 miles long but still very impressive. I believe it was low tide when we were there as the beach was also extremely wide. This beach is actually considered a road and many tour buses and other vehicles can be seen speeding down the center of it where the sand is most hard.

Car driving down "90 Mile Beach"