Feb 7

Today we travelled to the Waipu Caves, just a short drive north of Mangawhai. There is no charge to enter the caves, nice! We donned our headlamps and headed down to have a look. Once we were in total darkness, the glow worms became visible, hundreds of them. Each glow worm is a tiny dot of light, and technically not a worm at all but a larva. We explored the caverns, splashing through the underground streams – only knee deep. The caves are quite extensive but we didn’t venture beyond the areas that were easily accessible, in other words we didn’t go anywhere that required crawling!

After the caves we headed to Uretiti Beach, a fantastic 25km stretch of sand that was for the most part empty. After some sea shell hunting we headed to Waipu for a pizza lunch at MacLeod’s Pizza Barn – delicious. After lunch we didn’t wait the appropriate time, but went down to Waipu beach and had a refreshing dip and played in the waves.

Feb 8

Today the boys went fishing in Alex’s boat. Friends of Alex and Trish joined us for the weekend, so Alex, `Gerry, Nick (from Canada) and myself went out for a morning ocean fishing session – great fun. We caught 3 Kahawai, 12 Red Snapper and one Golden Snapper, which was too small and was thrown back. After fishing I had my first lesson in filleting, I think I did ok. In the afternoon Lydia wandered over to a local skateboard park where a competition was underway – it was amazing and we enjoyed the show. The remainder of the afternoon was spent chilling before digging into a fantastic supper of fresh fish, BBQ’d veggies and desserts (oh yeah, there may have been wine)!

Feb 9

Packed up and headed back to Auckland – tomorrow we pick up the van!

Alex's boat

entrance to Waipu Caves

looking for glow worms

Waipu caves

Lydia on Uretiti beach - beautiful!

I learn how to fillet a Snapper