Happy to leave our overnight accommodation in Warkworth, we left early with the intention of having breakfast at McDonalds in Whangarei. Our mistake was to stop off at the iSite (Information Centre) in Whangarei, we just wasted time and felt we knew a lot more than our male customer service assistant, just frustrating. (Tip for travellers in NZ, women are so much more helpful and informative than men at all the iSites we have visited. We really should have dri...

A busy day started with us leaving the B&B on Buffalo Beach to travel a short way down the coast to the the wharf. The place looked deserted and it soon transpires that we are the only passengers on the trip. Safety briefing complete we headed out to the calm open sea in the semi-rigid inflatable. The sights on-route included Shakespeare Cliff, Cooks Blowhole and the famous Cathedral Cove. The beaches look great for relaxing so well worth a return visit when...

We bade farewell to Rex and Annette at 08:15 and headed off for Whitianga on the east coast of the Coromandel peninsular. On the way we retraced some of our route from yesterday starting with the Karangahake gold mine trails. The site is now disused but there are various marked routes for tourists and we decided to take the "Windows" path. Along the way we saw the remains of the batteries used to refine the rock to extract the maximum amount of gold, rail tracks ...

Off at 9.00 am, destination Mount Maunganui where Rex and Annette have a beach house. It was a cloudy sky so umbrellas seemed a good idea. We passed various farms and villages which were part of Rex's early years. First stop Karangahake Gorge Historic Walkway, famous for beautiful scenery, gold mining and rail history walks. It was raining so we decided to revisit tomorrow morning. Next stop Waihi, an active opencast gold and silver mine, dug on the site of...

Before leaving Napier we visited the Art Deco shop (previously the old Fire Station) to buy postcards and stamps. We were looking forward to meeting Rex and Annette, long standing friends of Mark and Julie, who we had met twice in New Zealand and once at Bankwood. It was raining on and off during our drive to Morrinsville, near Hamilton. The Sat Nav (a very recent purchase of Mark and Julie's) proved to be excellent, taking us through some stunning countryside ...