Day 8 & 9

Day 8 (New Year's eve): Rawene - Ahipara - Henderson Bay

• witnessing a lonely dotterel on the beach guarding it's nest, protected by it's own little DOC-installed tape fence
• watching Adrian swim in the too-cold beach water at Henderson Bay - he was hopping around quite a bit!
• drinks at Northwind Lodge (recommended) with other people staying there and the owners - a few kiwis, a Canadian, a Dutch couple, an English couple (who quite bizarrely it turns out, live a couple of streets away from Adrian's dad in Rawene) and a lot of Germans
• playing Euchre which reminds me of Nanna - and I won :)
• seeing the pink and white sands on the beaches

Day 9 (1 January 2010): Henderson Bay - Cape Reinga - Rawene

• Cape Reinga was just cool

 

 

 

• ice cream and pies for lunch under a tree on the grass at Te Kao (the ultimate Kiwi lunch?)
• visiting the sand dunes at Te Paki

• cards for the first time in ages and I had a good night for it!
• a lovely homemade dinner with pasta and salad, made by Paul's friends who are also staying

I will put photos up when we get back to Wellington to help you picture our summer road trip!
aLSO, Adrian and I decided we didn't want to do the long trek from rawene to Tokaanu (8-9 hours) on the 3rd so tomorrow night we have treated ourselves to the "Spanish Experience" at Skycity in Auckland (which includes tapas and Sangria!!). Then we will go to Rainbow's End on the way home yay! Kind of tacky and lame I know, but the best we have in NZ and we aren't in Akl very often!
xxx