Where are the Goats?

June 1
We left Sheepworld and headed to Goat Island. Which is a Marine Reserve, it was the first one to be estabished in New Zealand, and has views of Hen and Chichen Islands in the distance.
In the past, they used to livestock on these islands to breed, so if people were shipwrecked they had something to live on. However, as they were never any goats on the island it is though that passers by named it, as it was only good for goats, but they didn't have any spare to leave. At some point there were pigs on the island, but they decided it wasn't right for them so they swam to the mainland (50m away).
However interesting this may be we were there for the large amounts of fish and aquatice life, which are found in surprisingly shallow waters and next to the shore.

Where's the net?

In the summer this place is heaving with tourists, the conditions of the fish is so good they stick around. We braved the cold water with hired 7mm thick dive wetsuits, comlpete with hood and a few other hardy fools. Straight away found large Snapper withtheir big mouths and sharp teeth showing us they were not at all scared of us. In fact were swimming straight at us. I think this must be due to a lot of tourists feeding them, this is a shame as it ruins the local environment but it does let you get very close and personal with some scary looking fish.
We snorkelled through and over some kelp forests to Goat Island with some of the Snapper. Especially the larger ones following us all the way there and back again - quite an eery sensation.
Back up the hill for a cold shower followed by a hot chocolate.

We made our way up the coast, stopping in at Wellsford for a take away roast dinner. Not bad for a few quid, a full roast dinner in a plastic tupperware box. Probably quite a rubbish roast dinner but as the first one with all the trimmings I've had in a long time, it did the job.
We then drove for an hour, found ourselves a good picnic spot for our nights stay, we settled in for an evening of competitive card games.

written by

James & Tracey on June 1, 2007 from Warkworth, New Zealand

from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour

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