The Beautiful Northland

We continued to travel north from the Auckland region, visiting many lovely white sanded beaches along the way. We spent the next night at a regional park called Mahurangi which was absolutely gorgeous, yet another lovely sandy beach lined with red pohutakawa trees!

The next day we moved on north to do some snorkelling! We were very excited about this and had even purchased our own snorkel gear! Goat Island is a 547 hectare area established in 1978 as New Zealand's first marine reserve and apparently the place to go snorkelling. So we got our gear on and walked out from the beach into the water. It was FREEZING. Now, we had already discovered how cold the sea water in New Zealand is on various other beaches- Chris has succeeded in submerging himself in the water, but I however have failed miserably every time, only getting as far as my thighs!

We built up the courage to get fully in and underwater after about 5 minutes, but unfortunately I had huge problems with my mask...it was letting in quite a lot of water. We tried to sort that out for about 10 minutes while also trying to avoid huge waves crashing over us at the same time- difficult. We tried again for about 5 minutes and had a little swim around and we think we saw a snapper fish but we both decided it was just too cold to stay in! So after a grand total of 20 minutes we gave up completely and sunbathed on the beach trying to get warm!! Chris stayed freezing for about an hour after which was quite worrying! We also came to the conclusion that I need a child mask to snorkel as an adults is too big! Oh dear..it was all a bit of a disaster really!

After warming up in the van we then drove on to stunning Pakiri Beach, about 12k from Goat Island Reserve. The beach was another unspoilt expanse of white sand and huge surf. It was paradise.

The next day we moved on towards Whangerei, the main town of the north. The drive took us past more lovely beaches and wonderful views over islands in the Pacific. We passed through Whangerei, with a little stop off at The Warehouse (an amazing New Zealand shop that sells EVERYTHING) to grab a cheap Christmas tree and decorations! We stayed the night at Matapouri, a great beach on the Tutukaka coast, after the best New Zealand Fish and Chips we´ve had so far in sweet little village of Ngunguru.

The next day we went scuba diving! After failing to do so in South America we were determined to dive in New Zealand. The best dive site we had about was up here in the Northland, called Poor Knights Islands. The marine reserve was established in 1981 and is actually rated as one of the worlds top 10 dive sites. The islands out in the Pacific are bathed in a subtropical current from the Coral Sea, so lots of varieties of tropical and sub tropical fish can be seen here. We were pretty excited..and also terrified! We both completed our PADI course nearly 4 years ago and the last time we dived was 3 years ago in Thailand. Therefore we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We made this clear to the instructors and they offered us a refresher course but us being the budget travellers that we are, we didn't really want to fork out the extra cash, so we decided to rely on our awful memory!

We arrived at the dive site and were told to get ready with all the equipment (some of which we couldn't even remember the name of!!). We eventually, after copying everyone else and a lot of help from the instructors, managed to get all the gear on! We got in the water- which again was VERY cold, but the big wetsuits helped a lot. Unfortunately I had mask troubles again and no adult masks fit, luckily they had junior mask for me which was perfect! So after a lot of faffing around we were finally ready to go under. One major thing I had completely forgotten about was the whole buoyancy thing! I was quickly reminded about it as soon as I tried to get down to the bottom..and also how awful I used to be at it! It took me a while but eventually, after ascending to the surface a few times, I made it down! And it was beautiful! The coral and the fish were stunning..and the water was so clear! I was quite apprehensive for half the first dive, getting used to the whole ´breathing underwater´ thing again! But towards the end of the dive I was relaxed and absolutely loved it!

The second dive was even better- we were much more relaxed about the whole thing and had kind of remembered what we were supposed to be doing! The fish again were great, we saw 2 huge sting rays too! One of the highlights was diving into a cave 7 metres below the surface! We all popped our heads up into the air pocket and chatted to each other..while underwater! It was amazing! The whole area above sea level was beautiful, there were great rock formations and a huge limestone cave that we went into in the boat- apparently the largest sea cave in the world!

The next day we travelled back into Whangerei to visit Abbey Caves, a network of three caverns full of glow-worms and limestone formations. Only one cave was open at the time and it was fantastic! We had to whole cave to ourselves to explore, we were walking in freezing cold water up to our waist at one point!

The glow-worms were amazing, there completely covered the walls and ceiling of the cave, it was such a beautiful sight! It reminded me of looking up at the stars on a really clear night! We also visited Whangerei waterfalls which is apparently the most photographed waterfall in New Zealand! As you can see it was quite photogenic!