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Hi everyone,
Welcome to another Graham and Lindsey blog!
Hope you all had a great Xmas and New Year.
We had an amazing time in New Zealand after we landed in Aukland (North Island) on the 13th of December. We arrived a bit early - 5am! So we had to wait around for a bit until we could pick up our Spaceship.... its actually not a real spaceship but a campervan called a Spaceship!
Once we had picked up our vehicle we headed North to the Bay of Islands and found a DOC campsite. It was a lovely campsite just above Whananaki. The camp site was practically on the beach! We stayed there two nights, went running and swimming in the sea. We tried to run to the local light house but got a bit lost. But it was very scenic so we still had fun.
Little did we know that this would be the last of the sun for a while....along came the rain.
We had a panic one night when we, sorry... when' I ' (Graham) lost the keys to the campervan. We searched high and low for them. We had the whole campsite looking for them. We did find them in the end in a crisp packet!!! I now have to wear the key on a string around my neck!
We headed up North to Russelle, which is a very charming little town. We were a bit off the beaten track, at one point we drove down a dust road for an hour, looked like something from the film 'Wrong Turn'. It was worth it though as we found another DOC campsite right by the waters edge. We could sit and watch the flying fish jumping out the water.
On our second night there we went on a Kiwi walk to see if we could spot any but predicatably we did no see a single one. Might have been something to do with the 25 people on the walk tromping through the hedgeland together with torches scaring the timid birds away!
We stayed a few more nights around this area, we wanted to go North to the 90 mile beach but due to all the rain we thought it would be a wasted trip! Not really beach weather. Instead we drove South back to Aukland to meet up with Natalie and Dave Messenger, the newly weds on their honeymoon. They had spent the past week staying in a posh hotel in the Bay of Islands. They had picked up their campervan too.
We planned to meet the next day in a campsite near the centre of Aukland. That night we went out for a drink and had a lovely Indian meal, a real treat. We got up the next morning, running late and excited about seeing Nat and Dave. Unbeknown to us they were staying in the same campsite and we bumped into each other in the toilets!! It was very funny.
That day we all drove to New Plymouth so that we could meet up with Erin who Lindsey met through Kirstyn on her last visit to New Zealand. We stayed in a nice campsite over looking the sea (again!) and that night had a small birthday party for Natalie as she had just turned 20... no sorry 30! - Sorry Natalie I cannot lie!!
The next day Natalie and Dave left us to drive East, but we all went to an art gallery before we parted. We said goodbye expecting to see them in a few days time. Before we caught the ferry to the South Island we popped in to say Hi to Erin and meet her daughter.
In order to cross to the South Island we had to drive down to Wellington for the night. The next day we caught the ferry to Picton, and it was a rough journey. We made it though!!
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