The Bay of Islands and The Poor Knight Islands

The past few days we have spent up in The Bay of Islands where Hopper's Aunt Freda and her husband, Bruce, live (about 3 hours north of Orewa). Freda's son was working in Christchurch when the earthquake hit but luckily he is ok. When we arrived they had lunch waiting for us before we went exploring in the town of Paihia. That afternoon we grabbed some beers and famous New Zealand ice cream from happy cows and strolled the beach. We also booked a boat tour of the islands for the next day.



We woke up bright and early Friday morning for our day-long boat trip and stopped at the store to buy our picnic lunch. I am not a fan of lamb and that was going to be their only option on the boat, so we brought our own.

Right off the bat we started seeing bottle nose dolphins.

Then they let people who had paid extra swim with them. I am not sure who had more fun, the dolphins or the people on the boat watching the group of European tourists in speedos chase the dolphins.

Midway through the day they dropped us off on Urupukapuka for lunch and to explore. This is where Nelly and I had a picnic.

 

Sheep!

Then Nelly went Boom Netting. Basically they threw out 2 booms with a net and dragged people around the bay (he's the first one standing up holding the sides of the netting).

The next day we left Freda and Bruce and headed 1.5 hours south to Tutukaka. There we caught another boat, this time destined for The Poor Knight Islands, large masses of volcanic rock jutting out of the middle of the ocean about an hour off shore.

The snorkeling was amazing, with tons of fish that swam right up to us! The sights were especially spectacular in Rikoriko Cave, the largest known sea cave in the world.

Here we are in the boat inside the cave. The tans are starting!

The boat company that we took was called A Perfect Day which was aptly named because it really was a perfect day. From there we went to stay with Gay again, we really missed her!

Location:The Bay of Islands and The Poor Knight Islands