Brrrrr - Blogabond

June 2
After stopping the night in a picnic area, we drove the 24km to Tutukaka, and headed straight for the marina. Which much to our delight, found we could stay there and use the marina facilities for free.
We sorted out some diving for the next day, we then made our Whangarei Falls. The falls were quite impressive.

More Watwerfalls

but we fancied a walk and there were signs pointing down the river, so off we set just as the rain finally caught up with us. We followed the river for 3-4km, where the path ran out due to the bridge being missing, haven been knocked down or taken away! Annoyed, we turned round and headed back, when we got back to the base of the falls, up one of the trees we noticed a sign saying the track was closed which some funny person had chucked up there.

Pesky kids

We made our way back to the Marina and as it was raining we did the washing and chilled out in the van listening to music, reading and Sudoku.
That evening we headed for dinner at the Marina Pizzeria. Here we enjoyed a lovely candlelit dinner overlooking all of the boats.

June 3
First thing we made our way to the dive shop and were kitted out with thick 2 piece 7mm wetsuits. We sailed straight out to see on 'Perfect Day' to the Poor Knights Islands. This dive site claims to be the worlds best sub-tropical diving. Our first dive of the day we dropped down and followed the side of a wall. The water was a chilly 19 degrees, we saw a few Moray eels and a Scorpion fish. On the way back we swam over and past lots of Kelp. There was quite a swell in the water, which along with us using the thick wetsuits for the first time made controlling our buoyancy quite tricky. After a spot of lunch on the boat, we sailed round to Rikoriko Cave, which has the largest volume of sea cave in the world. The cave was easily big enough to fit the big dive boat in.
For the second and final dive of the day, it was decided that we would dive in the cave. It was quite dark under the water, it was a bit different as there was not any coral or many fish, so we headed out towards the sunlight at the entrance of the cave, where there was a definate line where all of the sea life started. Trace got a video of James and a John Dory fish swimming up face to face. The John Dory fish is very thin and swims towards its prey head on, small fish do not realise its such a threat until the John Dory opens up its extending big mouth and swallows it whole. However, it decided this fish was too big for him and he swam off. Shortly after this Trace had had enough of being freezing, and her lips had turned blue, we decided to head back to the boat for hot showers and hot drinks.
We then sailed back to the Marina and set off on the road again for Kerikeri.

written by

James & Tracey on June 2, 2007 from Tutukaka, New Zealand

from the travel blog: James & Tracey World Tour

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