First week of 2011

Kayaker for supper?

The new David Bailey?

Bear and I at the 2nd largest kauri.

Orca invading our swimming space

I felt a little strange!

Is it the Nile? No Hokianga harbour.

Matt joined us in Tapeka on the 2nd and we all went fishing from the rocks. Matt and Vincent successful but not a bite for me. The water quite clear for snorkelling and saw sting rays, small squid, and some largish fish as well as different types of starfish. Got quite brave about snorkelling from the rocky beach with lots of seaweed. Had a day trip to the west coast and Hokianga harbour where we found the slowest service bakery in NZ, 40mins for 3 panini, as well as a lovely harbour entrance looking like the banks of the Nile with huge sand dunes on the other side. Walked to the 2nd largest kauri tree in the world where a woman had decided to have a breakdown and a poor policeman was trying to persuade her to make an effort to get back to her life again, preferably without him carrying her back to the distant car park. Walked into Russell seeing a kingfisher nest in the bank and listening to the 'buzzing' babies inside. Had a delicious meal at Sally's. Matt took lots of photos with his new camera, all so good we gave up photos until he had gone. Also got soundly beaten at bananagram, rummikub and yahtzee. Had a whole day walk to Whagamumu bay stopping at the old whaling station for a picnic lunch and swim. Lovely spot and hope to do the quite testing walk again with Malcolm and Lovat. Matt got the coach back to Auckland from Pahia after an early birthday BBQ, very sad to see him go but an exciting year ahead of him. The next evening we noticed boats milling around, usually a sign of something interesting, spotting orca! a pod of 5, 4 small and one very large just offshore. They ended up just into our swimming bay by the platform chased by kayaks, a paddleboard, and small inflatables. They were well into our daily swim route, quite shallow and surfacing very near the boats. Once out of the bay they rounded the headland and appeared off our rocky beach. I googled orcas in the bay of islands and got horrific pictures of them killing dolphin by tossing them up and breaking their backs before eating them. The kayakers and paddleboarder might think twice about a repeat encounter. We shall certainly be very wary when swimming. Tame-ish moreporks just outside that evening saying 'morepork, morepork' and tuis in our tree during the day. Had also had parakeets and a kingfisher as well as wekas and quail in the garden. The tall ships race to end the week with just about every sailing boat in the Bay of Islands going past our deck. Had lovely BBQs for food and just a great start to the New Year.