So, to recap the last couple of months. We finally left Whangarei on 1st December and made the last leg of the trip up to Tutukaka. What started out as a leisurely 4 hour trip up the coast ended up taking about 7 hours as we broke two fan belts halfway up and then spent about 3 hours changing them. Luckily we had spares on board but it's a major job changing them.
We only stopped at Tutukaka for a few days before taking off again up to the Bay of Islands. The weather forecast was good so we thought we'd spend a few days up there. Unfortunately the weather turned pear-shaped the day after we arrived at Russell and we spent the next 10 days waiting for the gales and rain to disappear. The first fine day we high-tailed it back to Tutukaka where we spent a week or so getting ready for the Christmas cruise.
We left Tutukaka on 21st December and headed back to the Bay of Islands where we finally saw Russell in lovely summer weather. Much nicer than the previous trip. After a few days there we carried on north and had an overnight stop at the Cavalli Islands before arriving at Whangaroa harbour about a week ago.
Sunrise at WhangaroaWhangaroa is a lovely harbour about 30 miles north of the Bay of Islands with dozens of little bays to overnight in and creeks to explore in the dinghy.
The fishing isn't bad either, we had a nice feed of fresh snapper for breakfast on Christmas Day.
And we don't dine too badly on other stuff as well.
There are lots of great bush walks to be done.
And the scenery is quite spectacular.
It's New Year's Eve tonight and we're probably going to spend it at the Game Fishing Club so I'm off for an afternoon nap.
Not sure where we're going form here but possibly further north up to Hohoura before heading south to the Hauraki Gulf.
I trust everybody had a great Christmas and may 2008 be a good year for you all.
