Waihi Beach

Our destination for camping was Waihi Beach with its 9km long beach.













They had a parachute competition going on where they had to parachute in at high speed to the ground, do a tight turn through flags on the beach then stay off the ground for as far as possible.








At the far end of Waihi Beach is Bowentown Domain and Anzac Bay - a more sheltered family beach.










A climb up the hill within the Domain provided a fantastic view of the ocean and over to Matakana Island.

Martha Mine, Waihi

Our next stop was in Waihi where we went to look at the largest gold mine operation in NZ - they produce 80% of gold and silver in the country. This is one of the dumper trucks that works in the mine.





This is a picture of the mine - it is currently 200m deep.

Karangahake Gorge

This weekend we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula to go camping - our first real holiday since arriving. On the way we stopped off at Karangahake Gorge which used to have a large scale gold mine operation in the late 19th century.





There are many walks in the area but we chose to do the famous "Windows" walk. This takes you along the old train tracks of the mine through the tunnels. The windows are gaps in the rock offering spectacular views down the gorge.



The tunnels were very dark in parts, and we forgot to take our torch, so ended up having to guide 3 pensioners through the tunnel with the aid of the light from our mobile phone!

Waitangi Day - Visit to Matua Valley Winery

As today is Waitangi Day, we had the day off work so headed out west to Kumeu and visited a couple of wineries.







We did some wine tasting at Matua Valley Winery and bought a few bottles of wine.

Auckland Anniversary Day

Today we went to North Head to watch some of Auckland's Anniversary Day celebrations in Waitemata Harbour. There were lots of people on top of the hill making the most of a great vantage point.





One of the NZ Navy's 2 frigates (that's all they have...) was the flagship for the day - HMNZS Te Kaha.




One of the first events of the day was a vintage tugboat race with some of the tugboats dating from the late 19th century. The race started and finished at North Head.

Fishy Goings On...

We had a trip to the city yesterday, did some shopping and had a nice lunch out. We then went to the fish market on the way home. There were lots of different types of fish, and some that looked very strange. We bought some tuna & salmon sashimi (raw fish), a dozen oysters and a snapper, this cost approx £11!!!

We even saw some people waiting to have their sea urchins prepared, cleaned or whatever it is you do with a sea urchin...

We had the sashimi and oysters to start (obviously with a bottle of the fizzy stuff) and then barbecued the snapper in true kiwi style...

Camping at Baylys Beach

Baylys Beach is part of the 100km long Ripiro Beach which is longer than the famous Ninety Mile Beach (which isn't 90 miles long!). Baylys Beach is a tiny village with a campsite, cafe and a small shop. This is a view down to the access point to Baylys Beach.



The beach is classed as a public highway and normal road rules apply. It is very strange seeing cars, motorbikes and quad bikes driving down the beach. It does mean it's not the safest beach to lie down on! This is the police patrol going down the beach.




You see for miles in both directions and cannot see the end of the beach, nor can you see anything out to sea - no islands and there weren't any boats out. It is very popular with surfers though as there are good waves all along the west coast of NZ.



The Funky Fish cafe is a great spot for something to eat or drink - a very popular hangout for both locals and tourists. They do great fish (John Dory) and chips.




The campsite was quite small but in a nice setting. We made good use of our BBQ, both for evening meal and cooking breakfast in the morning.