New Zealand – Maitai Bay – 11th November

Up early we were back up at the viewing point doing some exercises in the morning sun! Trying to keep fit is part of the plan on our 9 month trip! We followed this with our usual cereal and fruit with additional toast as the kitchen at the campsite has a toaster, it was good to be using someone else’s gas!

We set off along the coastal scenic road which does take longer than the normal routes and sometimes involves gravel roads. En-route to our next destination planned to be north of Doubtless Bay we stopped off at another lovely little beach called Touranga Bay, still not as pretty as where we’d just stayed but people were already out in their bikinis catching the hot sun! As we were heading back out to highway 10 from the coastal road we passed by a few hitchhikers, they were locals looking for a lift to Keri Keri, we thought they wanted to go north and they thought we said we were heading south. Anyway they were with us for 5 minutes in total as they hopped out when we got to the highway when they realised we weren’t going the way they had hoped. Still we got them to a better point for hitching their way home. They did smell though and had a dodgy story about running away from their sisters, so perhaps it was for the best!

We stopped off at Doubtless Bay for lunch and asked around for some WIFI, most places sent us back and forth to the other. So there was no WIFI to be had! But we got some info on the area and decided to continue to Maitai Bay which would be more secluded. Maitai is on the Karikari peninsula with a different beach at every corner, you can choose where to go if the wind isn’t in your favour or the sun is out somewhere else. For us though the sun was still shining and we picked our spot to avoid the wind at the upper campsite, plus it seemed a little more sociable. After reading and chilling out we went for a walk, one that had been instructed on the DOC information board, but a path that was impossible to find! Still we walked along to the next beach and later on after dinner we went for another stroll and watched the moon rise. It was yellow and just beautiful. Neither of us have seen it like that before.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Related posts that may be of interest to you:

1. New Zealand – Wanaka – 11th/12th Dec It was quite a drive from Franz Josef to Wanaka so we broke up the journey with an overnight stop at the DOC campground located...
2. China – Beijing – 9th-11th November Posting a blog post everyday which involves writing a mini diary and editing through copious amounts of photos takes up lots of time. Therefore we...
3. New Zealand – Auckland – 7th/8th November Our Qantas trans-pacific flight was easy enough with over five hours of sleep to pass the time and the obligatory movie or two. We all...
4. New Zealand – Whananaki – 9th November We started the day with a trip to a Pak’n'Save, there is one located 10 minutes north of Newmarket, although we stumbled across it. We...