WHANGARURU HARBOUR, TEPARAPARA BAY.

11TH APRIL, 2013

Tom, aka Ocean Hippie on his face book, came and joined us for lunch, dinner and the night.  He borrowed an old friend's banger in Auckland and drove up to see us, about a three hour drive.  He appears to be having a great time working in Darwin in Australia and enjoying 'outback' life.

After Tom left we filled up with fuel as it is cheaper because it is near the Refinery. Unfortunately the pumps stopped running after we were only half full.  Jonathan tried to get a receipt but no paper left, he called the company who run the pumps to say he needed a receipt to get the GST back so they said they would email it to him, 48 hours on we have heard nothing.  I took photos of the pump and the cost as proof so will send this to them.

After Tom left we headed a few miles north to Pacific Cove and Tutukaka Harbour for the night.  The following day was bright and sunny with a good wind of 15 - 20 knots from the East we tracked along averaging  7.5 knots, caught a lovely sized Kingfish (yellow tailed Amberjack) about 8lbs.

Yesterday morning we arrived in Whangaruru Harbour and are at anchor in Teparapara Bay.  Went for a walk along the isthmus between Bland Bay and Tuparehuia Bay, mainly holiday Batches (A Batch was originally a one bedroomed wooden house for men working the land) we saw three cars on the walk.  Going the other way out to the peninsular is a Kiwi reservation area but unless you know what to do it would be very hard to see them.  They are very blind but have a very good sense of smell, we could have lain in seaweed for the night to keep a look out as seaweed would disguise our smell, but somehow that option was not really considered...

Today is squally and cool, we plan to set off for the Bay of Islands this afternoon only five miles up the coast.