From Chile we flew across the International Dateline, totally missing Wednesday 29th October which was a little disconcerting, and arrived in Auckland before dawn on 30th October. We were happy to be back in a land selling good coffee. It's pretty odd that in lands of coffee production like Peru the coffee they serve is rank and yucky!
Having had almost continually great weather for as long as we could remember, it was a bit of a surprise to find Auckland, wait for it, cloudy! And windy, and on the cool side. We quickly learned that typical Aotearoan weather includes all four seasons in one day (sound familiar, Brits?). Anyway, we jumped in our hire car and headed North for the Bay of Islands where we stayed in backpackers hostel where we could see Russell across the water. The hostel was clean and friendly and we were to find that in general New Zealand backpackers hostels are run by decent folk committed to providing a quality, if basic, service. Many people cook in the kitchens provided (though we usually chose to eat out, often having had bread and cheese for breakfast and lunch) and everyone seems happy to chat and exchange stories.
The next day we went out to the islands in a yacht which previously had been a racing yacht (once winner of the Sydney - Hobart race) and owned and skippered by a really nice bloke who made the trip really enjoyable - as did a few dolphins and the sun!
After this we began to make our way back down the coast, camping at a bird sanctuary near Goat Island. Needless to say, the dawn chorus that greeted us the next morning was even more rowdy than usual! The plan had been to snorkel around the very rocky coast there, but the weather was quite cold, so we thought we might do it in the following morning. We did see various fish and a couple or rays just by clambering around the rocks and by the time tomorrow came we reckoned we needed to get a few miles under our belt, so the fish (not to mention humanity) were spared the sight of the pair of us in wet suits and masks! At least for the time being...
Having had almost continually great weather for as long as we could remember, it was a bit of a surprise to find Auckland, wait for it, cloudy! And windy, and on the cool side. We quickly learned that typical Aotearoan weather includes all four seasons in one day (sound familiar, Brits?). Anyway, we jumped in our hire car and headed North for the Bay of Islands where we stayed in backpackers hostel where we could see Russell across the water. The hostel was clean and friendly and we were to find that in general New Zealand backpackers hostels are run by decent folk committed to providing a quality, if basic, service. Many people cook in the kitchens provided (though we usually chose to eat out, often having had bread and cheese for breakfast and lunch) and everyone seems happy to chat and exchange stories.
The next day we went out to the islands in a yacht which previously had been a racing yacht (once winner of the Sydney - Hobart race) and owned and skippered by a really nice bloke who made the trip really enjoyable - as did a few dolphins and the sun!
After this we began to make our way back down the coast, camping at a bird sanctuary near Goat Island. Needless to say, the dawn chorus that greeted us the next morning was even more rowdy than usual! The plan had been to snorkel around the very rocky coast there, but the weather was quite cold, so we thought we might do it in the following morning. We did see various fish and a couple or rays just by clambering around the rocks and by the time tomorrow came we reckoned we needed to get a few miles under our belt, so the fish (not to mention humanity) were spared the sight of the pair of us in wet suits and masks! At least for the time being...
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