We set off from Hamilton this morning in the cooler foggy morning conditions we’ve had for a couple of days now. As we got on the motorway towards Auckland the skies cleared and it got hotter, very hot.

We decided to have a break at the services after Auckland city. there is a BP station where you can pay for the motorway road toll. its easier for us than using our mobile phone or internet.

At Warkworth we picked up a tourist map and decided to go to the beach at Pakiri.

To reach the beach the road goes up over the steep hills and then down on a gravel road to the Pakiri Beach. The beach is a very long with fine light golden sand lined by sanddunes.

It was so nice but so hot. After getting too hot we went back to our car and went down to the Leigh harbour. To get there we had to climb up the gravel road again, fortunately every time we met a car there was space to pass each other. At Leigh, the harbour was busy with people fishing and divers getting ready to go to the Goat island area. This is a marine protection area and has coral and many fish to see. You can go in glass bottomed boats to see the fish. That depends on the waves!!! for me…

So the surprise was we thought we’d booked a motel with a swimming pool, but not so.

It is a bed and breakfast without cooking facilities and no microwave or iron oops! it seems nice though but not what we were looking forward to for 5 nights.

Watch this space! xxx