New Zealand Discoverer
Day Fifteen – 11 March 2012 – Day of the Dolphins
Weather: Rain, 20
I was up early and put out my luggage then dropped off the extra bag to the porter. I got my 30 minutes free on the internet but once again, I had to stop halfway through and visit the washroom.
Breakfast was the usual New Zealand coach tour special. The eggs were creamy and the chicken sausages like a chicken vienna sausage. The tea was, once again, excellent.
And I had some kiwi. Yes. Wouldn’t that be funny. To do three weeks here and leave without eating a single kiwi.
Oh wait…that didn’t come out quite right.
Maybe that’s why they call it kiwifruit and not just kiwi.
It was delicious.
I went out to check the weather. Warm and wet. One doesn’t mind the rain so much when it’s warm like this. Our bus from yesterday was gone into maintenance so John pulled up with a new bus and a really big smile.
Guess he got some ice cream last night.
Or kiwi for breakfast.
We pick up a dozen extra people, but Nellie asked our tour to board first. Course, the funny part is that the numbers above the seats were different, so we got to pick and choose where we sat. Nellie wasn’t keeping count. So, I’m in my favorite third from the front seat. Close enough to see what’s going on in the front and a full window to my side and room to stretch my legs that you don’t get in the front seat.
One thing missing from both buses, though, is cup holders.
The rest of the newbies got on and filled up the front and we were off….to another hotel to pick up another half dozen. Then we were off. We passed the tower, shrouded in fog and made it through the traffic really quick.
Oh yeah, it’s Sunday.
Nellie starts giving her introductory talk again. Which means I can watch the scenery and start typing.
As we leave Auckland, we pass over the Auckland bridge which went through a renovation to double it’s capacity from four to eight lanes.
They apparently hired a Japanese company to do it and the way they decided to expand the capacity was by clipping on two lanes on either side of the existing bridge.
They call them the “Nippon Clipons”
Nellie tells us that our stop tonight is in a town called Paihia and John tells us he saw a great t-shirt there that said: Paihia – a great little drinking town with a fishing problem.
Ya knows now!
The Bay of Islands has 144 Island with many of them uninhabited but the area is full of white beaches. Nellie decides to tell us about the optionals for tomorrow which will be affected by weather. There’s the dolphin swimming, the tour up to Cape Reinga that includes sand dune sliding and a tour of Kerikeri. She said there’s a flight to the Cape too, but doesn’t expect it’ll fly tomorrow.
After discussing it with her, I go for the tour to Cape Reinga simply because she thinks it’ll be too rough to get in with the dolphins tomorrow. She tried to arrange to let me do it today but said they said it was rough today too. We have the cruise to the Hole in the Rock this afternoon and she even thinks it might be too rough to take the boat through the Hole in the Rock.
Nellie stops her optional talk and tells us there’s a unique breed of sheep coming up on the left to watch for and sure enough, we pass a few sheep made of metal on the side of the road.
Guess that’s where they get steel wool from.
Just before that, we passed a paddock with pink sheep.
Will it ever end? LOL.
(That pic is from Tirau…but is the same thing…just larger).
We stop for a tea break at a German cafe. I’m starting to feel the waist band getting tight, so I have to skip the morning muffin, but I need the caffeine in the Coke. Then I go outside and….another cat! New Zealand has 3 cats!
As we leave, Nellie tells us she’s made another bet with John. He always says we’ll see the tops of the mountains or see the sun but she says no. At 50 cents a bet, John is making a handsome profit. They’ve just made another one and given the forecast, Nellie just might win.
Then we clear a hill and in the distance, if you squint, you can see sunshine.
LOL
The Newbies are a little befuffled by all this. They’re a little quiet, to tell you the truth. Barely a hello from any of them.
As we get close to Paihia, Nellie tells us about a public toilet designed by a local artist who was a nature lover and designed a public toilet so unique that nobody takes a second look at anyone taking a picture inside and out.
No one gets arrested for it either.
So Nellie convinces John to pull into this town called Kawakawa and we park behind the toilet and go in and go wild taking pictures.
Since there are no straight lines in nature, the toilet was designed with no straight lines. That includes where the floor meets the wall. There’s even a tree growing out of it. It’s an interesting spot.
As we get set to leave, we’re missing one person. Nellie runs off in search of her with the missing woman’s husband. Now Nellie had reiterated several times that this is just a quick stop and that lunch was in Paihia, but this woman went shopping for peaches thinking we had until 12 noon. So, another public announcement – double check if you not sure. Listen carefully. One missed timing cost the entire bus ten minutes in a tight lunch hour.
Granted, we’ve been lucky with people being on time. This was the first time and it wasn’t a big deal. It’s the repeat offenders that can really chafe at the bit.
So, we leave Kawakawa and drive ten minutes down the road to Paihia – a one street town on the beach with the bay full of islands.
The Bay of Islands.
Those English, eh?
John drives down the street so we get a basic tour and Nellie points out the pharmacy. And some cafes. Before she lets us loose on to the town, she has us go into the dock and pay for our optionals for tomorrow. I think it was $95 for the dinner cruise and $150 or so for the Cape Reinga extravaganza.
By the time I took a quick look around and got a fridge magnet, I was running out of time (there’s that lost 10 minutes) and I had to rush to grab a sandwich and meet Nellie at the dock for our Hole in the Rock tour.
Now, when I read this in the itinerary, I thought, “Okay, that’s cute. We saw a hole in the rock in Peru but didn’t go through it.” But I didn’t think much more of it.
Talk about being taken by surprise. The catamaran that takes us out is a fair sized boat with two decks, a lot of inside seating, upper deck seating and a snack bar.
And it has a spot out front where you can literally lean over the front of the boat and look down. Since it’s a catamaran, this spot is squared off so about 6 or 8 people could stand along the front.
But it is windy.
Cause this boat is fast.
Woooohoooo!
This is a view off to the right side. We had to hold on to those metal bars for the whole high speed part of the trip cause we could hit the waves pretty hard and when it would go down into the troughs, we could go weightless.
Once it started, I went up front thinking the area would be swamped with people but it wasn’t. Three people were hanging on as the boat started to hit some small swells. I took a spot in the middle and didn’t leave for the whole three hours. No one else was as brave.
What a thrill. Now I know how Leonardo Dicaprio would have felt had he really been on the bow of the Titanic screaming “I’m the king of the world.”
The ship rose and fell and we were whooping and hollering with each swell. The ship slowed next to an island and talked about how Cook had come into this area and stayed longer than he expected.
I can understand why.
Then we speed off again with the Dolphin boat shadowing us. (They don’t look like they’re going swimming). The captain says they’re looking for dolphins as we go along in the shelter of the islands but he gives up after a few minutes and heads out for the open ocean.
So, we get close to the last bit of land and the captain again says to watch for dolphins then says “there they are!”
We all say “where” “where” and then it’s not hard to miss them once he says at 2 o’clock. Even among the swells, we can see a pod of dolphins skipping along the water.
Woooooooooohooooooooooooo!!
For the next 20 or 25 minutes, the dolphins shadow both boats as we make slow circuits in the area. They swim with the ship just below us on the front so that we can see their bottle noses. Then they swim out and jump. Some catch fish and some just play.
There seemed to be dozens but likely it was about a dozen or so of the same ones just playing with us. I finally clued into the burst mode on my camera and took more than 150 pictures I’m sure plus some video here, here and here.
What a thrill.
Seriously, New Zealand, stop it! Or we won’t leave.
So, we leave the dolphins and motor over to the big chunk of rock off the coast and it soon becomes obvious that this is the hole in the rock. It’s a tunnel going through the rock and I imagine the boat would just squeeze through it – when it does go through it.
Today it was a no go because of the swells (video). He tried but from our perspective on the front, the swells were huge inside the hole. I could see the swells raising the ship into the roof of the hole. I doubt the captain ever seriously considered going in but gave the impression he tried. Even the smaller dolphin boat didn’t try.
So, we turn around and head back to Paihia. The ride back is smoother as we’re going with the wind and once we’re in the shelter, I go inside and get something to eat and check out my photos. I think I got some real keepers. We pull up to the dock and offload. Nellie is waiting for us and tells it that it poured rain while we were gone and just stopped. We take the bus the short distance up to the hotel – another Millennium brand name one called the Copthorne Hotel and Resort.
I can at least guess at the internet availability.
The place is gorgeous. We’re on the beach with a lawn full of palm trees between us and the ocean.Our rooms have patio doors and a place to sit outside.
It has everything else the rooms usually have and has the safe the rooms usually don’t. No robe, but it’s warm enough here not to need one. Though there’s no curtains on the patio doors, so if I want to walk around in the buff, I have to close inner closet-type doors which blocks out all the light.
I check my email and hear one of my cats is pretty demanding and the caretakers are demanding more chocolate. Nice part about a late flight on Wednesday. I can get all those last minute gifts when I go for that 6 km walk.
I go out for the buffet at 6:30 and am very thankful it’s a buffet. I am so wiped tonight that a sit down set menu would have broke me. I had the roast and potatoes with veggies and chocolate cake and apple crumble for dessert. I was done before most came out for dinner.
Go to Day Sixteen
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