Helen and Randall on the road

After brunch at the Black Sugar Grill in Mission Bay with Keith he dropped us at Sid and Judith’s (Randall’s uncle and aunt) who fed us wine and then drove us to the choir concert they were taking part in:

Judith’s Hava Nagila solo

After a very civilised afternoon tea we headed back to the house and drank more wine, caught up on all the family gossip and photos, then chatted to Graham the retired entomologist from across the road, ate a lovely dinner and then slept for about 10 hours.

Sunday was lunch at a Japanese restaurant with Sid and Judith and their neighbours Graham and Dorothy:

Nephew, Aunt and Uncle

Sid looks on as Judith gives the instructions.

Judith and Graham

Judith and Dorothy

After a boring-ish Thursday of driving in the rain we woke up in our slightly rustic but very sweet campsite on Goat Island Marine Reserve in glorious sunshine:

The campsite was right in the reserve only a few minutes walk from the sea so we rented some wetsuits and fins (we have masks and snorkels) and headed out to snorkel in the ‘natural aquarium’. We only took the cheap underwater 35mm film camera we’d bought in Australia so you’ll have to wait until we get it developed to see if any pics came out, so here are some from google to give you the idea: Photos

29th October 2011: OK – here they are!

Randall looks mildly concerned about the approaching fins…

We had just got into the water and were flapping about getting our fins on when we saw two fins (the scary triangular kind) approaching us – I shot behind Randall for protection before we realised that they were dolphins coming to play! They disappeared again so we snorkelled around the rocks and out to the island, seeing lots of snapper, rays (including an alarmingly huge one) and various other pretty stripey fish, and then just when we were about to get out of the rather chilly water the dolphins reappeared, and hung around playing with the snorkellers (there were 6 other people also snorkelling), sweeping in and out of touching distance, round and round us (basically herding us!) so that was completely fantastic!

After handing back the kit and having hot showers we headed to Matakana as we had a discount voucher for lunch at the Ascension Vineyard where the food was glorious and the wine was pretty good too (Randall was driving but apparently the ginger beer was nice!).

The inevitable food pictures:

Seared hapuka (from NZ sustainable farming), colcannon wrapped in parma ham, and buttered broad beans. Mmmm-mmmmm!

roast nz duck breast | grilled polenta | broccolini

Sticky date pudding with caramel sauce and vanilla bean ice cream. Two spoons.

Handmade chocolates.

Then it was off to Auckland to meet up with Randall's long-lost relatives. More specifically to attend the birthday of the daughter of the son of his father's half sister. Obviously. Lovely people, more food, plenty of wine, and a civilised nightcap back at Keith's place where we spent the night in a real bed, and had hot showers without having to immediately go outside afterwards...luxury!

After a Scotland-like drive through torrential rain on gorse-lined winding roads we arrived in Paihia on Sunday evening only to discover that the camp site we had picked from the Lonely Planet didn’t actually have camper van sites any more…boo! Still, they recommended one just up the road where we parked up  amongst the olive trees in a slightly soggy small camp site, paid up for one night, then raced back into town to find somewhere to catch the second half of Wales – Fiji (result!).

When we woke up it was still raining, and we decided our little campsite was rather too basic for a day destined to be spent indoors so we threw our stuff in the back and drove straight to the Beachside Holiday Park

Actually it didn’t look like this when we arrived as on Monday it rained all day, but we did have this great spot looking over the bay (until someone parked their enormous Winnebago in front of us!) and they had great facilities including free  internet and a TV room with a proper desk, so Randall spent the day working on some contract work we picked up (shame to be working on our holidays but the extra pennies count!).

Tuesday was a glorious day:

So after a breakfast of real coffee, fresh orange juice, raisin toast, muesli and smoked salmon with scrambled eggs:

we put on our boots and hiked around the coastal path to Paihia, although as it was high tide we had to come inland for part of the way instead of walking along the beach.

Even so, the walk was beautiful, with views out to the bay (and its Islands!) on one side and flowers on the other side:

Gorgeous winter jasmine. And Randall.

In Paihia we hopped on the ferry to Russell across the bay:

Randall with his ears flapping in the wind.

Russell

Bay of Islands from Russell Flagstaff hill

Crazy house with mad roof and interesting gateposts.

We did a couple of short walks around the town, including up to Flagstaff Hill and the nearby mosaic-ed sundial:

and down to Long Beach:

Randall gets drenched playing

in the rock pools!

Where we ate our sandwiches (yes, of COURSE I’d made a packed lunch) and admired the flora and fauna:

Calla lilies growing wild

before catching the ferry back to Paihia and thence home, where the campsite had been invaded by the French, so our nice quiet kitchen area was packed with parents cooking for their attendant sulky children. I *was* however impressed by frog père actually flambé-ing  bananas for pud. Très bien.

Big thanks to the fabulous Gav and Joyee for their wonderful hospitality in their beautiful home!

Go NZ bread on Union Jack breadboard 🙂

Also to the cats:

We had a long lie in on Friday morning which we attributed to the 3 hour time difference, although to be honest it was more likely to do with being in a real bed in a real house with a super-comfy mattress and a spotless private bathroom next door! However we did manage to drag ourselves to collect our Wicked Camper, thankfully less of a social embarrassment than the last:

I also managed to drag myself out for a run around the park in which sits One Tree Hill while Randall made use of a decent wifi connection to get some work done, and then when Gav and Joyee came back from work they kindly took us to the local shopping mall where we stocked up on SIM cards, 3G dongles, bits and pieces of camping stuff and some warmer clothes! After dinner (for those that remember, one of Gav’s famous vegan curries – hooray!) I unbelievably crashed out on the sofa with the cats to the sound of the boys playing on the Xbox Kinect.

On Saturday as promised Gav took us out walking in Waitakere National Park which has a brilliant visitors centre and the rather sweet idea of framing the more beautiful views!

We walked to a waterfall:

then 40 mins up to a steep lookout, and back down to the beach, which with its rock pools and windswept sandblasting reminded me of childhood trips to Borth:

Incidentally I just discovered by reading that Wikipedia entry on Borth that according to Morrissey, his hit single “Everyday Is Like Sunday” was inspired by Borth. This pleases me greatly.

Anyway, after that short walk looping back to the car park we were off to a small village for lunch and  back for a quick nap before heading into town for dinner at Monsoon Poon.

Dinner was made amusingly interesting by Joyee and Randall both ordering the Firecracker Chicken which turned out to be ridiculously – painfully – hot and required copious amounts of raita and mango lassi to even make a dent in it:

The offending article

Still, the rest of the food was yummy, the beers were cold and the (non-alcoholic) lychee cocktails were superb:

and the eclectic pan-asian-theme decor was interesting, particularly the Great Leap Forward-style wall paintings (check out the baby about to roll a melon onto my head).

We made it to The Cloud in time for the second half of the Scotland-England game, which looked as if it was about to be the second surprise of the day (all the hooting, hollering, happy Tongans indicated that they had just beaten France!) although as it turned out this was not to be. Still, we got a good spot to watch on the big screens amongst good-natured but crazy fans of all nationalities:

On Sunday morning we were out of the house early (ish) for Yum Cha at the Grand Park restaurant the other side of One Tree Hill:

before a short walk in the park and then a drive (well, it’s steep and it was starting to rain!) up to the monument itself (no tree though!).

Gav and Joyee under the tree where they got married 🙂

After packing up our van and bidding Gav and Joyee (and Tommy and Fluffy) a grateful farewell – and promising to return to see Gav compete in the Cross Harbour Swim on 13th November – we headed off to the north, in the rain.

Mainly about driving to Brisbane, dropping off the Campervan, and then flying from Brisbane to Sydney and Sydney to Auckland, however had a great drink and dinner with Nick Warren and Krissi Teague on the waterfront in Brisbane on Tuesday night, but were too rubbish to take photos (fail), and then lunch in Manly on Wednesday with Alex Johnston (fail again on the photo front).

Sadly for me I had to say goodbye to my fabulous straw hat which has accompanied me on various trips to Budapest, Novi Sad, Croatia, Malawi and Berlin as it was really getting a bit raggedy. Luckily I’d bought a new squashable hat in the fantastic hat shop in Noosa. Nice, but not the same…

Our flight from wet and windy Sydney was delayed by 3 hours which we whiled away in the Qantas lounge with free internet, breakfast and champagne (actually sparkling wine from the Seppeltsfield Winery that we visited in the Barossa valley) so it wasn’t all bad, and then on arrival in Auckland we were met by the lovely Gav, and old friend from Uni days. Dinner and a few glasses of wine soon polished us both off…

After another very average night’s sleep in the Waterfront Global Backpackers we picked up our slightly embarrassing Wicked Camper:

Pacman Camper (with wickedcampers trademark rude message on the back)

and headed north out of Cairns towards Cape Tribulation, ensuring we paid attention to the dire warnings:

and being a little alarmed by the temperature gauge being constantly well over half even when pootling along at 80 km/h.

The road along the coast was quite beautiful, with the deep forest on one side and the beach on the other:

and where the road did head inland it was criss-crossed by narrow-gauge railway tracks used for the sugar cane and fruit harvests.

At Daintree Village, the ‘frontier’ after which there is no mains electricity, we crossed the croc-infested river on the chain ferry:

After this point we were really in the rainforest, and the road signs and excessive speed bumps (cobbled!) reflected this!

Eventually we reached Cape Tribulation and checked in at PKs Jungle Village, a fantastic camp site with everything from tent pitches to ensuite cabins, plus a pool, a bar, wireless internet and fairly decent communal camp kitchen facilities, all set amongst winding paths through tropical gardens:

Our pitch

We were the last van pitch; number 10 right next to the beach:

and had an early night after our first camping dinner:

and the next morning we got up early for the sunrise at the beach just a 2 minute walk away down the rainforest boardwalk…

Later in the morning we headed to the Daintree Forest visitors centre, a really well curated information centre about the Daintree Rainforest (at it’s oldest point between 110 – 200 million years old, compared to the Amazon’s 7 million!) with an aerial walkway that takes you up into the forest canopy:

then we headed back to the camp site, failing to have ice cream as planned at the Daintree Ice Cream Company because they were cash only and we only had plastic (the two ATMs in Cape Trib being out of action) – big disappointment!

The road was interesting in terms of signage and this rather sweet but a little alarming wooden bridge:

Back at Cape Trib we did another rainforest boardwalk and spotted some fresh cassowary poo although no actual cassowaries (boo!) then sat on the beach with a bottle of fizzy wine, watching some backpackers play beach cricket, until who should come wandering along the beach but Phil and Enrico, two of the people who had been on the Vagabond with us…after a chat with them, we went off to make dinner, then ran into them again in PK’s bar so the evening was rounded off with too much beer.

After a dreadful night’s sleep at the Global Backpackers on the Waterfront, a conveniently located but badly run huge backpackers hostel on the Esplanade in Cairns, we made it to the Vagabond on time for an 8am sailing to the reef.

3 and a 1/2 hours later Randall and I were in the water for our first dive, before lunch; as the only two certified divers on the trip we got priority, so we were off with the dive instructor on a tour of Thetford reef, diving to a max depth of 14 metres as everything is so close to the surface.

We were looked after amazingly by skipper Paul, First Mate and hostess Belle, and Dive Instructor Dwayne who fed and watered us regularly as well as kitting us and breaking down all our diving gear for us…luxury!

After lunch we headed to another site on the same part of the reef, for more diving and snorkelling action – there were three people (Craig, Enrico and Jean) doing unqualified ‘training’ dives and another two (Deb and Phil) just snorkelling. On this dive, despite not exactly following the dive plan (Dwayne the guide was a stand-in who didn’t know this part of the reef as well as the3 usual instructor/guide) we did some amazing swim-throughs of coral canyons, and saw sea turtles close up, as well as all the incredible corals and brightly coloured fish.

We spent the night at this site, and after a glorious sunset:

Randall went on a night dive, while I had a couple of cold beers with the rest of the crew and company.

The next morning after breakfast Randall and I were in the water for our first dive at 8am, and we attempted – fairly unsuccessfully – to take photos with the underwater camera:

The colours from the camera *really* don’t do the subject matter justice sadly…we saw some of the ‘professional’ pics, and to get the colours underwater they needed huge lamps.

Then we moved to another spot closer to the edge of the reef where Randall dived again and I snorkelled, as there was loads of incredible coral and also whole families of parrot-fish really close to the surface.

Finally skipper Paul announced that ‘the pool is closed’ and we all packed up and ate lunch before the beautiful sail back to Cairns.

Spent the morning recovering and chilling out in the coolest hostel ever:

Desert Rose outside our caravan

A series of interesting rooms (ours was a caravan) set around an immaculately kept garden and courtyard, with pool:

Nice touches:

The delightful owner Wayne let us hang out there and leave our bags until our flight to Cairns late afternoon – recommend!!