Well here we are, in the not so sunny (at the moment) Bay of Islands. For anyone who doesn't know where they are, we are north of Auckland and just outside Waitangi and about as far North as you can get in New Zealand and still be IN New Zealand. We are on day 3 of our travels, and had a spare minute so thought I'd give a brief overview of how things have gone so far.
Day 1:
James, Alex and I set off early for the airport as David has driven up the night before. I should point out that our plans have drastically been altered due to some unforeseen events, though we were always planning on flying to Auckland while David drove up. The flight was reasonable uneventful and both boys did a fabulous job even though it was only a 45ish minutes flight. The car journey up to Paihia was, well what we expected. LOL Alex doesn't usually travel well in the car over long distances (thus the flying)and though tired refused to go to sleep until after we had were well north of Auckland and even then it was fretful sleep. He woke up screaming his head off, waking James up in the process, about 30 minutes south of Whangarei. After a walk around Whangarei, while I went and picked up a cot, and and ice cream and a quick whizz round the supermarket we were on our way again and Alex travelled really well for the hour up to Paihia. We settled into the bach, and the boys preceded to refuse to go to sleep until much later than normal, in fact James was up and down ALL night, and up early yesterday morning.
Day 2:
We basically spent ALL day at the beach, looking in rock pools, building sandcastles, splashing in waves and going for a 'swim'. Both boys had a nap about mid day and we went back to Paihia in the arvo to hit the Tourist Information so we could see what else we could do. Plenty of ideas, but seemingly not enough time to do them all in so we'll have decisions to make. Both boys late in bed again, Alex didn't get to sleep until about 8pm, James even later at around 10pm! Then they were both up with the birds this morning as usual while poor David and I can't seem to get nearly enough sleep.
Day 3:
The plan for today is to go for a ride on a steam train and possibly a glow worm cave if we can convince James to go in as the last time we tried he freaked out and refused to go in. The clouds have rolled in, but hopefully the rain will stay away until tonight when we are all tucked up in bed.
I will probably not update this again before we get home next week, but will try and remind myself to grab a notebook so I can take notes and type it all up once we get home. We have another 5 days in Paihia before moving on to Raglan for 2 nights before heading home again. So though it seems that summer seems to have lost its way when trying to find Wellington, summer seems to be well and truly here in Northland.............which would be nice except we aren't used top the heat coupled with the humidity which can make it really unpleasant at times. But then I'm sure some would be wondering why I am complaining when other parts of the world are covered ins now and cold and miserable.
