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I can hardly believe the time has come to write our last blog of New Zealand!
Although we still have two days left, we thought it only seemed right that we finish on a note, which is in keeping with the rest of our New Zealand experience.
Tomorrow we head out of the Coromandel Peninsula and head straight to Auckland. As you all know we are not really big city people and so we predict we will be spending our last day on the island getting final jobs done and stocking up on some Fijian dollars!
Today we have had a kayaking trip of a lifetime at Cathedral Cove. This particular activity came highly recommended by Joey who once again led us in the right direction.
After spending yesterday relaxing on the beach in the sunshine we were praying that today's weather would be as good and we were definitely not disappointed…7am the sun was shining and it did not stop shining all day! Plus we had the perfect paddling conditions as the sea was like a lake and calmer than at Doubtful Sound which made it nice and easy…bonus!
We took off from right on Hahei beach which was a great way to start the trip as you paddle along the coastline until you reach the first cove. We went out to some islands and explored along their shorelines, all of which were pretty impressive as they are made from white igneous rock that reflected the sun. This combined with the perfect turquoise blue sea made it just beautiful and every corner was like discovering a new private island with a perfect untouched beach.
The highlight of the tour had to be paddling through some of the many caves that had been cut out of the rocks…It is a good job the kayaks are pretty durable as on more than one occasion we managed to judge the gap seriously wrong and smack into the rocks…oops! We didn't sink though, and regardless of my flapping and worrying we were going to sink, Chris had a wail of a time…in fact we both did! The caves were just amazing and some of them were so long it took nearly a minute to pass through the other side!
The final destination of the tour was Cathedral Cove itself, which has the massive cove carved out of the rock, it really is a special little place and we stayed there for a while, Chris had a swim in the sea and we had cookies and a cuppa on the beach. We then stopped off at Stingray Cove on the way back, which yep you guessed it has lots of stingrays! Huge ones! I'm glad we weren't snorkelling there the day before…mind you where they were spotted was literally only the next bay along eeek!
We arrived back at Hahei beach and had a well-earned lunch whilst relaxing and watching the sea. Yet another perfect day in New Zealand.
We seemed to know even before we came to New Zealand that we were going to like it here. How we knew I don't know, but we have absolutely loved it. I think it reminds us of Canada and we have regularly been looking at a beautiful mountain or lake and said its like Vancouver! The last three weeks here have been the most exciting three weeks I have ever had. We have been jet boating, kayaking, hiked a glacier, swam in beautiful oceans, seen sperm whales, seen the best sunrises, sunsets and starry skies that I think we will ever see.
Goodnight everyone, the next time you hear from us we will probably be in Fiji!
Netti & Chris xxx
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