It’s Monday already and we woke to hear the birds singing in the forest behind the house.

The Route 1 road Is called the twin coast discovery highway as either coast is easily accessible from this long thin stretch of NZ.

First we called at Port Albert. Here ships arrived at Auckland and brought pioneers mostly from Birmingham Uk to the area.

Read the plaques about them. It must have been such a hard slog to get established in this untouched land!

Port Albert turns out to be a bird watchers paradise. There are tiny crabs in the thick mud and many wader birds feasting on them. We saw pied stilts, herons, kingfishers, terns, and oyster catchers as well as many gulls, just in the short time we were there.

The weird thing was all the cracking clicking noises the mud was making quite frequently. Any suggestions why?

We explored this ” mainland island” as they call it. It juts out into a huge natural harbour, (similar natural harbour to smaller Auckland but not so deep) Then called at the main town of Wellsford. Motorways in NZ go straight through towns so you can imagine the noise of the huge trucks thundering by as you sit in a cafe!

Next we decided to explore the East side and Bream Bay.

At Waipu there was a sign post to a marine reserve and to our delight it was a beautiful salt marsh by a lagoon behind a sand bar. You could see the surf waves pounding on the shore on the far side of the spit.

We saw samphire and other fleshy plants growing in the sandy mud. The marsh was so untouched and as nature had created it . No sign of mans destruction here. There were stilts there and shells. I really can’t collect any more special shells , grandad would go bananas, so I photographed them for you and for me to remember.

The smells, colours and sights of the marsh I will remember for always, it was a beautiful place.

When we dragged ourselves away we followed the road along the coast a little way to Waipu Cove. This was a gorgeous spot too

A long beach bordered by rocks and hanging trees. Out in the Bream Bay were small islands. The sea was deep blue.

I have to pinch myself to remember all these places won’t look the same in the grey drizzly rain. We have been so lucky with the weather. Now NZ has had the best summer for years and the warmest Autumn so far too!

Now back at the B&B I am writing this looking out on 2 lime trees and 2 loquat trees that look like apples but you eat them with salad.

l