We awoke to a serene and calm bay which unfortunately meant no wind for sailing. The bay was quite busy as we motored back to Opau. A new cruise liner had arrived (we later learned that 85 are expected this summer) disgorging its passengers ashore via a series of shuttles boats - the locals must rub their hands when a new boat arrives. Next four jet skis in a diamond formation zoomed past us like a reception committee from a James Bond movie but then we spotted a boat moving very slowly in a circle. Knowing there are many dolphin viewing excursions in the bay we wandered over and we were thrilled to spot a pod of dolphins.
At midday we dropped the boat back with Kim. We would whole heartedly recommend Fair Wind yacht charters to anyone in the Bayy of Islands area. As it was midday we drove up to Pahia for a spot of lunch on the beach and then continued driving North towards the historic town of Kerikeri (maori for dig,dig) home of the oldest stone building in NZ. Anticipating it would form part of a quaint old high street with similar buildings we headed for the town centre, however, the reality was a fairly lively town full of modern shops and attractions for the tourists - definitely not us.
With nothing else to see we made our way a few miles to rural Okaihau, our Airbnb home for the night, to meet the owner Sue and her cocker spaniel - Joe (cocker..!). As we pulled up on the drive we greeted by two concrete torsos of naked women leaning up against her wall in the driveway - not had a welcome like that before! The self contained annexe to her home was lovely and surrounded by green countryside. We both luxuriated in a hot shower, there had not been one on the boat, and Yvonne covered herself with the lovely smellies left for us. This would be our last night of homemade chilli con carne (third night on the trot now) along with tinned rice pudding.
The evening was spent chatting with Sue and she kindly invited us in to her home to use the internet as we really needed to book up the next few nights accommodation before we head south to the more touristy areas of Coromandel and Rotorua. Sue is a remarkably talented Mosaic Artist and showed us some of her pieces, one being an old iron clawfoot bath with a side cut out to make a garden seat covered with incredible mosaic designs. After looking at some photos of her other work it became clear the concrete torsos would eventually become patterned works of art.
As she was leaving early Saturday morning to head off to her craft stand in Kerikeri we bade farewell to Sue and through her we have finally found a decent radio station to listen to.
 |
| Yvonne heaves the anchor aboard - no power assistance on this boat. |
 |
| The view from our bedroom window. |
 |
| What a welcome! |
 |
| The bath bench. |
 |
| And the lady behind the madness, our host, Sue. |
No comments:
Post a Comment