A recap of our trip thus far in New Zealand:

We arrived on the 15th. I remember that was a Sunday because everything was closed until 10am. Our flight of course got in at 6am, and we made it to the Brown Kiwi by 8am. We wandered around the city somewhat aimlessly for awhile and bought field guides at Borders when they finally opened.

The facilities at TBK were less-than-impressive. The manager wasn’t always around when he was supposed to be and the shower was essentially a concrete slab surrounded by aluminum siding. The “hot” water was lukewarm, and the kitchen resembled the aftermath of a small bomb. The room was really nice though, and we slept like the dead.

On the 16th we woke up around 4 or 5am (we went to bed at 8:30 pm, we were tired). We checked out and made our way to the rental car place. Our car is a little white Toyota Starlet with the horsepower of a flea and the trunk space of a kangaroo rat… but it runs! We headed out of town to Muriwai Beach where we saw a nesting colony of Australasian Gannets, in addition to lots of White-fronted Terns. It was extremely cold, windy, and rainy and we froze our butts off.

We followed Hwy 1 North - Northland is gorgeous, it’s very green with lots of cows and sheep - and stopped at Waipu Cove. We ran into a lady from the DOC who let us look through her scope and helped us ID some bird species. It started pelting rain again and we got soaked through. We headed to our hostel in Paihia - the Peppertree - which is a really nice place.

On the 17th we got up at 6:30am to head up to Kaitia for a tour of 90-mile beach. THe drive there was absolutely gorgeous, the northern portion of Hwy 1 passed through a lush jungle-like area with these really cool-looking fuzzy palm trees. There were lots of showers and rainbows on the way. Our tour was with Sand Safaris. We stopped at a Kauri (an endemic ancient tree) gift shop and then headed up 90-mile beach. There weren’t many birds along it, but we stopped for some good photos in places. Our guide was Maori and sang us Maori songs on the bus. At the end of the beach we stopped at the sand dunes and went tobogonning.

Cape Reinga itself was pretty, but very windy. There were huge waves where the Tasman Sea met the Pacific Ocean. We stopped at a nearby bay for lunch and then headed down to the Gumdiggers park where we had a guided tour. I wasn’t paying 100% attention though because there were cool birdies (fantails! they’re pretty!). Vanessa also got to see some NZ Spotted Geckos.

After the tour Vanessa drove back to the hostel (only moderately scary).

Today we went on a day sailing tour of the Bay of Islands. I was a little worried about getting motion sick but I did great - the bay was calm and we were on a very smooth Catamaran. The weather was a little sucky - mostly cloudy with occasional rain. And we didn’t get to see any dolphins all day. But there were several good pelagic birds that kept us occupied, and we saw Blue Penguins. We got to hike on an island and lunch was a “barbie” on the boat.

This evening I did some shopping in town. Tomorrow we head south and the day after we go to Tiritiri Island.