Sunday 25 January & Monday 26 January 

After the day’s sailing on Vigilant we headed south from the Bay of Islands and spent a quiet night at a lovely beach side DOC camp site called Puriri Bay, Whangaruru North Head.

lovely swimming and great views from the hill above the site

A noisy Spanish family were next to us (Dad, Mum and 5 children ranging from about 18 years to 8 years) playing football with the ball thumping against the Mighty every few minutes. They were originally from Chile, emigrated to Australia where they earned some money but did not like living there so they went to Christchurch, NZ. They invested their savings into a lovely house that was then destroyed by the earthquake. They abandoned Christchurch, and their home, two weeks after the quake as they could not stand living with the continuous aftershocks, and headed for Auckland where they now rent a house whilst trying to build up their savings again. Sadly, tales of woe like this abound.

We drove on South the next day and stopped for the night at Pacific Bay—a recreation reserve which in effect was a small area of land (100 metres x 100 metres) owned by the Maoris. Freedom camping at its best as there was nobody around.

where Helen’s sketch pad appeared!

Meanwhile whilst driving through the various villages we saw water tankers delivering drinking water to a number of houses ——this was one of the driest summers they have had for a long time!