tiki tour to russell day1

i’ll do this in two dollops as there’s quite a bit to fit in.

after the late night on friday we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and out of the door by 8.15am on saturday morning

we stopped for breakfast at the dome cafe on the way which is about half way to whangerei (pronounced ‘fang-are-ray i think – or possibly ‘fang-are-eye’)

there we wandered along the waterfront, looked at some shops then drove up a big hill to a viewpoint where we ate our sandwiches

then we drove further north until we got to kawakawa which has the hunderwasser toilets

if some of these pictures look familiar it’s because we did some of these items on a trip with the Laughlands when they came to visit last new year

then we caught the ferry across to russell and we found our holiday house which we got for less than $30 (15 pounds) for the night! it was really spacious, well appointed and even had a view of the sea

after a quick cuppa we walked down to long beach (jane’s head’s warped on this picture because of the camera angle, not because her head has warped)

this is where we sat in the heat of summer a few months back

then we wandered in to town past an electrocution chair

there was rugby on – kezia was wearing her english football jersey whilst england was playing but we managed to find a quick restaurant where we could enjoy our food whilst listening in to the conversations of two other couples in the restaurant who had ended up sitting on the same table despite there being loads of tables free