To Russell

A day of travelling today.  Weather is still favouring us although there may be some rain later in the week in The Bay of Islands. The hunt is on today for a shop that sells a camera card connector for the iPad, so our first stop is Orewa.  Too full from breakfast to have coffee and cake in our early morning stop last year! Orewa is too small a town for our purchasing needs, so we press on to Whangerai. As we head further north the clouds are gathering... still dry and some good views despite the cloud.

It's Saturday and Whangerai is pretty busy. Park in the Town Basin and ask where to find the electronics shop. It's back the way we came! Find the relevant shopping area - it's like a very scruffy and busy McAthur Glen  with lots of fast food restaurants (hope that gets your imagination going!) saying that, the people are very helpful and we find the required item. 

Lots of winding roads later we arrive at the Helena Bay cafe and gallery. Some lovely 'pictures' and sculptures to buy for the garden outside. 

First priority is coffee and cake (breakfast has worn off by this point). The view from here makes it a stunning place to have a drink.

Not sure if Eric is more interested in the view or the cake.

Yum!

Slurp!

Of course a visit to the gallery shop is obligatory.  Spend a bit of money - well we are on holiday!

Follow the old Russell Road onward, with a couple of beach stops on the way. 

This tree was in front of one of the bay's...

The road winds up and down and around 90 degree bends

Getting close to Russell now

Arrive in Russell. Another wedding - this time on the pier

Arrived at the B&B - Eric decides to do a bit of tree climbing to get a better view. 

The verandah view is as good as we remember - and the weather has improved too. 

There are night time nature walks. We book ourselves on one for this evening.  While waiting for our guide we spot some rare Brown Teal on the wetland area. 

No moon so very dark in the bush. We have torches with red filter on and walk quietly so that we may see one of the Kiwi that have territories here. No physical sightings but both the male and the female are calling, and close to us in the bush - they make quite a noise when they are moving around. Other delights on the walk include sheet web spiders (wouldn't want to walk into one of their webs in the dark!), Weka, Weta (both cave ones and tree ones - they are insects a bit like crickets or grasshoppers but huge - about 4 to 6 ins long with long legs and that's without the antennae, which are almost the same length again.)  lots of Ruru calling and glow worms - the place is lit up like a Christmas tree.  We stop to have a Kawa tea - slightly medicinal but quite pleasant - apparently related to some other hallucinogenic plant - but we don't see any flying Kiwi!