Happy New Year

Jan.1, 2006 - Happy New Year to everyone! - We took a bus tour to Cape Reinga which is a lighthouse at the top the island and the spot where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. It was a pretty spectacular place to be on the first day of 2006 and apparently many others felt the same way, since it was quite busy. We took the road on the way up, the last 18 kms were gravel, and then on the way back, we drove down to the beach. We stopped at some sand dunes on the way in to the beach and people tobaggoned down - Bob did it twice-. Then we drove down 90 mile beach. It was amazing - this huge flat stretch of beach where you can drive for miles, and miles and miles(isn't there a song something like that). We actually travelled for about 70 kilometres down the beach, watching the waves crashing along the shore. The beach was really quite deserted, only a few people fishing, driving or riding motorcycles or quads. We really enjoyed this experience. Next we stopped at the Kauri house, where they made funiture and gift ware out of the old kauri stumps - some very beautiful pieces and also quite expensive. That's it for Kaitaia.

On to the Karikari Peninsula and Carrington Estate, where we had lunch at the winery overlooking the golf course and bay - nice view but extremely windy day, gale force winds. We thought about cancelling our golf game, but of course, we didn't. Strange course designed by Matt Dye, some relative of Pete Dye. British type links style - a little rough around the edges and some questionable holes - good greens though. The wind and the course won that day and we won't tell you what we shot, but we both broke 100. We spent the night in Mangonui and had fish and chips from the famous? Mangonui Fish Shop - pretty good, but we were most impressed with the number of TV channels in our motel - there must have been at least 20 - normally there are 5 to 8 channels depending on whether there is Sky TV - this was CABLE!
I guess we are pretty spoiled in North America and we must watch too much of it. We called home and talked to Barb before she went back to Ontario and campaigning for the election.( She'll be in Kitchener door knocking for her boss, Karen Redman, who is running for the Liberals.)

Next day, we drove to Pahia which is by the Bay of Islands. We took the boat tour out to the "hole in the rock" and Cape Brett. It was pretty awesome, lots of little islands and sailboats and yachts, with a little history of Captain Cook thrown in. Once we were out of the protection of the bay, the ocean was pretty rough and we bounced and bobbed around a few times, with spray crashing the windows and we were sitting on the second floor of the boat - good thing. It was too rough to actually go right through the hole in the rock, but they backed the boat in about half way an it was kind of cool. Then a stop at one of the inner islands for a break and back to Pahia.
One the road again to Whangerei, where John and Linda used to live. We are staying for a couple of nights, and we planned to golf today, but we woke up to RAIN - so we finally had some free time to catch up with email and this posting. More later.