4th March

We woke up early and managed to navigate ourselves to the correct port and jetty just in time as we were the last passengers to arrive. Our trip was to be accompanied by a DOC inspector - who was from the UK and was living her life in New Zealand by jetting around on charters ensuring that no-one touched the dolphins. Unfortunately, I think it was her that jinxed the trip as we saw nothing but a lone little penguin.

Sun rising at Mount Maunganui beach

We sailed for nearly eight hours, had morning tea, a wonderful buffet lunch and chatted with all on board including a guy who was involved in mining for nickel ( a high tech process involving lots of acid - not sure which kind though).

 All I can say is that I was glad to get off in the end, suffering from sun burn, sea sickness, wind burn and a touch of " I bloody hate dolphins" syndrome I think that really the trip should have been cancelled given how choppy the sea was and the 25-30 knot wind that didn't let up all afternoon.

No dolphins 

Needless to say, when we finally got back to land we had to find somewhere to stay the night. Having checked out of the camp site before its office opened we had to return to get our deposit back for the key to the shower block and then from Mount Maunganui we drove up the coast. 

We passed through Waihi, then stopped outside a house to pick up some fruit and some delicious avocados. We had dinner right by the sea parked in a car park at Whangamata and watched the sun go down. 

Dinner by the sea at Whangamata

We felt that the town was not too keen on Freedom camping and headed inland to a DOC site at Wentworth Valley.

The camp site was accessed by driving along a gravel road for what seemed like ages in the dark, we met a land rover coming too fast in the opposite direction on a blind bend. Then we were confronted by a fairly fast flowing ford. "what the heck" we agreed out loud - we had come to far to go back.

At 8pm we arrived and the office was still open, we found a space in the dark and spent the evening sipping cold beer and watching the night sky stars rotate around us - just beautiful.