Bay of Islands...day 2 of 27

Day 2 Jan15

nice place to relax in Paihia

Lady of the Sea docked here.

Jess at the helm with the captain "Dave", Bene and Macala looking on.

Moturua...empty beach

all to ourselves

great hike over the top

from the track

peace

on the other side...1 boat

love this place...

nanc going over the hill

the stick makes me look local

tracking the birds

max getting educated...

mirror beach...

jess showing off her gear

jess...bug free

     Our tent held up fine (no rain or wind)...no one told me how hard the ground really is...ouch. The next morning we decided to go on a sail, out of Paihia, on the "Lady of the Sea". Sailed out to the Bay of Islands and Moturua Island then hiked over top of the island to the other side and found  another empty beach...we got to listen to all the yarns of the captain (american guy from key largo), this guy is a true bull shitter who’d seen it all. Believed very little of what he said but he was a good story teller. 
     Got to know some of our fellow travelers better...some are quite the characters...Jess (The English Rose) stands out, a girlie girl gone camping...so funny. Christine is the quiet adventurer from Germany....we have lots of young adults with us that we hope to get to know better, Bene is a young guy who was studying here (in NZ) and took a job with FlyingKiwi doing German Presentations to German students studying here, three young german girls seem very mature and interesting for 17-19 year olds, 2 other boys Naohtu and Jannis are nice kids, and then there’s Florian our 15 year old...already speaks 4 languages, plays several insruments and seems like a general all around whiz kid...this boy is going places. Kate, Max and Alex are very nice English girls as well....the only other mature couple (over 50) named Jesus and Anna are Spanish and speak very little english...good folks from Ibira Island off the coats of Spain.  So far we find the food is edible but very very basic, only so much you can do in the bush without hot water, electricity or ovens...maybe we’ll lose some weight!

     Had our first blip today...Holly (our young guide) got a call that her grandfather had died and she is leaving tonight for the memorial service...so we only have Steely (our driver) with all these greenhorns...we should be Ok though since we’ve mastered putting up our tent...a second night of crawling in and sleeping on the hard ground...does this toughen old people up or kill them??? Ask me in 26 more days.