Two drifters off to see the world. . .

After selling Vanna we were at a loss of how to travel since it was the first time we had to try to figure that out here in NZ. So we bought a 3 day package with Stray Travel that would take us up to the Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga. We were planning on stopping off on the way to Bay of Islands in Whangarei to scuba dive at the poor Knights Islands. On the bus ride up there we stopped at Goat Island for a quick snorkel where we saw some blue maomao and snapper fish. We also stopped at The Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre (www.whangareinativebirdrecovery.org.nz). There we were able to not only see Woof-woof the talking tui, who sounds like a 60 year old man, but we were able to pet both a baby kiwi and a baby morepork. A morepork is a native NZ owl. Both were wild animals undergoing recovery from small injuries, but should lead long full lives.

The next day we got bussed out to Tutukaka and took a boat out to the Poor Knights Islands. The islands are north east of Whangarei, and because they are where a warm sea current comes in from australia, they have both tropical and sub-tropical sea life. Jacque Cousteau rated it as one of the 10 best sites in the world to dive. So we went diving there. We saw tons of big snapper, kingfish, scorpion fish, an eagle ray and some eels. On the ride back from the islands, we ran into a pod of dolphins, and were able to hop in the water and swim briefly with them. Exciting stuff!

The next day we walked to the bus station and caught the bus up to Paihia in the bay of islands. The following day we took a rugged off-roading bus up to Cape Reinga, which is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. While up in that area we went sandboarding down huge sand-dunes. It’s basically sliding down them pretty darn fast on a boogie board. Crashing hurts cause its like using sandpaper on your face to slow down. We then went and drove down 90 mile beach, stopping to snack on some raw sea clams, which were kinda tasty. Sarah didn’t like them for some strange reason. We then went to a museum/store which had some ancient Kauri trees, which had fallen, were preserved in the swampy ground for tens of thousands of years, dug up and made into very very expensive furniture and tourist trinkets. They had a $55,000 wooden couch, and a huge two-story stump, with a nice staircase cut into it. Kauri trees are the 2nd largest in the world, and apparently have more usable lumber than the great California Redwoods (the biggest trees in the world).

We spent the next few days hanging out at Paihia beach, killing time before we had to return to Auckland. Eero spent a lot of time surfcasting, even catching a nice sized snapper, but alas, too small to keep and eat!  Sarah played with Rocky, the parrot, at the hostel we were staying at. Rocky really had a taste for Sarah’s glasses, watch  and earrings, and couldn’t stop trying to eat them. After a few days lounging on the beach we decided we needed a change of scenery, so we went back down to Auckland and then went to Fiji to lounge on the beach. More on that to come…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 4:36 am and is filed under Strange Animals, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.