Kerikeri

For the first time during our trip we are decked out in shorts/capris, t-shirts, and flip-flops. It’s incredibly warm by our standards and we are enjoying the sun immensely. Today we headed down to Long Beach where we wandered around and collected shells. Afterwards, we caught the ferry back to Paihia where we had a delicious ice cream cone and a wander around. We then made our way over to the Waitangia Treaty Grounds where we wandered around the beautiful grounds. Chrissy fell in love with the treaty house design while Tom enjoyed checking out the Maori war canoe. However, the sun has retreated behind the ever-increasing clouds and our lovely “summer” day has come to an end. Our driving hasn’t however.

We rolled on up to Kerikeri (sorry Kari, Karikari Pennisula is up the road!) where we discovered our main reason for stopping, the movie theatre & dinner place, was closed for renovations. We did check out Manaka Chocolates (again) and Keriblue where Chrissy fell in love with their cute ceramics and Tome offered valuable insight onto which plates to buy. He was happily rewarded with a block of fudge.

Our campsite for the night tonight is a DOC site set in a forest where we encountered our first fire pit with free firewood! Tom made good work on building a welcome fire where we tried to cook potatoes in the coals but instead succeeded in burning the aluminum foil. Luckily there was pasta for dinner! After watching Ice Age 2 we headed to bed hoping to hear some kiwi calls in the dark..