atiu creek

jane and i didn’t wake up until 9am this morning which was good going.

then, after some speed tidying of the house, we hit the road and drove up north for 45 minutes to our favourite cafe for a late breakfast

after that we went a bit further north, then west to a sticky out bit of land on the kaipara harbour to see what we could see. 

our first stop was Port Albert to see if there was anything to see.  there was a nice jetty, but not much else.

so we went further down the road to the atiu creek scenic reserve.

the views were great and we did 8 geocaches along the way.  there were another 25 to find i think if we’d been extra keen and willing to do a 4 hour walk instead of the 2 we did.  we went the yellow route above in case you are interested.  and if not, why not?  ok. you don’t have to explain.

as usual we were both too hot and too cold whilst walking and managed to avoid torrential downfalls of rain which happened only whilst we were driving!

after all our exhaustions we drove to the pakari hot springs which were amazingly empty. i suspect because of the rugby. we’ve got in to a nice routine now where jane and i get a private spa (which is only a little bit extra on the entry for the two of us) whilst the girls fling themselves down the flume.

after half an hour we got dressed and sat watching the girls in the outside pool demonstrating their under water handstands

whilst i write this the girls are skyping and mario-carting their cousins in a special late night stay up!