Up at 0800, stop for a coffee and a walk, the weather was Sunny and about 25 c, then on the road for the 2.5 hour drive to Paihia. 4 hours later we pulled into the motel. It seemed every one in New Zealand was on the same road as us. We’d drive for a while doing 100 then suddenly hit a queue of traffic crawling along or completely stopped. One 2km stretch took 30 minutes. The scenery was hills and valleys with some lake and sea views. We stopped for a coffee and sandwich on the way in a town that was basically closed because it was Good Friday.
Paihia was busy, all the motels (virtually every place on the beach was a motel) had ‘No vacancy’ signs. The beach was nice and the bay had some small islands in it. The place is called ‘Bay of Islands’, apparently there are about 140 in all.
It was too early to check in so we went for a walk along the beach. The place was really busy but quite small.
We had an early dinner at a place called Only Seafood. I had King Prawns in a garlic and chilli creamy sauce and a glass of Chardonnay. Song had a seafood platter. We also had dessert for the first time ; I had sticky date pudding with toffee and caramel sauce, Song had pavlova with berries. The meal was very good.
Walked back to the motel and watched tv. Drive back to Auckland tomorrow.
