So the day starts early here, it seems a lot of the native birds like to be up and singing before the dawn chorus, but it’s still a very pleasant start to the day.
Last night I called baggage services and they told me the bags were on the LA to Auckland flight (they did not seem to know how they got from San Fran to LA) So at 8am this morning I started calling to confirm they were here, and we were off to the airport to collect our bags, Hurray!!
We drove about an hour north to a marine bird reserve called Tawharanui. It’s not only known for the birds and hiking but also it has a very good surfing beach. It’s a long quite thin peninsula with amazing views. The weather was colder and more overcast than yesterday but still pleasant. We hiked about 6 miles and like all coastlines, it was very undulating, so that combined with some Jet lag made it feel quite a bit longer. But despite this it was well worth the effort and we really enjoyed it.
We called into Matakana for a coffee and cake. Matakana is a small town set in the middle of all the wineries in that area. Gets a lot of visitors for its farmers market every Saturday. The drive back to Auckland was uneventful but thank goodness we were doing the reverse to everyone else, its Labor Day weekend here and it looks as if the whole of Auckland was driving North.
