Whitianga - New Zealand

Have had lots of problems with wifi since leaving Margaret's so blog is way behind. 

After three wonderful nights at Margaret's  we realised we had to move on, or we never would and there is so much to visit while we are here. We came across  to New Zealand with  ideas of where we wanted to visit but talking with Margaret and Harry gave us a lot of  new places  to think about.

First of all we headed to Whitianga, which is pronounced Fitianga, as apparently wh  is sounded like a f. It was a beautiful drive up there, although to be honest if you ignore the palm trees, certain places closely resembled Scotland.  The roads were mainly quiet so we were able to relax and enjoy the trip, taking our time and stopping if something took our interest. After booking into our motel we set out to explore.

Our motel was very close to the waterfront so we headed to the beach and walked along to the ferry point. There is a little ferry that carries people a short distance across the harbour to another part of the headland which has beautiful walks. 

The walk we took made its way along beaches, woodland and on top of the cliffs. The weather was lovely and the scenery was incredible. 

The walk led to a bay where Captain Cook beached his ship, "The  Endeavour"  to careen or clean it. 

The harbour at Whitianga is seen above, the ferry basically takes you across that piece of water. After tea we headed out for another walk, we headed through the town and headed back at the harbour, as we were walking along we were surprised to see a stingray basically at our feet. If we bent down we could have touched it. 

Walking along the beach we came to this sign , this tells beachcombers what they are allowed to collect from the beach.  In chip shops across here they do Paua fritters and mussel fritters. 

I am keeping this blog short as, as I have already said major probs with wifi, which is surprising us as we thought this would be one of the better countries for it, we have also had to pay for it more here. We have had better free wifi in most other places we have visited. So many times recently I have done a blog and lost it all because wifi goes, very, very frustrating !