Tuesday 26th – Day 6
Mark and I went for our fishing charter today, with Spot X. It was a glorious morning with no wind and plenty of sunshine. We shared the charter with an older couple from Auckland and a Czech/Russian student. Picked him up from Russell before heading out to the ‘secret’ spot under the northern headland of the KeriKeri peninsular.

Mark caught the first three fish, a snapper and a couple of trevally. A lot of undersized snapper were hooked and released. I managed to catch the largest snapper and a couple of kawai. It was a pleasant morning and the skipper insisted on baiting the hooks, unhooking the fish and later cleaning and filleting them for us. We had 14 keepers with 12 snapper amongst them. The catch was divided amongst 4 of us, so a good result. We returned back to port with sunburnt legs and faces.

In the afternoon, we went for a drive to the Waitangi maoru reserve, Bledislo Hill lookout and a historic church, St Pauls. BBQ fish for dinner tonight.

Wednesday 27th – Day 7 A lazy day planned for today. I walked to town to get some cold and flu tablets, as I was coming down with a cold. We decided to go for a drive, so headed off to KeriKeri where we bought some cakes and bread rolls for lunch. Found a nice little picnic spot on Oroha Island, a kiwi and bird sanctuary. After lunch, we walked around the small island and saw a lot of Tui, which are black birds with iridescent green flashes on their wings and the males have large white ‘sacs; under their throats to attract the females. They have a beautiful song and can mimic other birds and sounds.
We then drove out to Rainbow Falls and back to Paihia jetty for coffee. A nice afternoon of sightseeing.