Sunday, January 9, 2011

Northland Roadtrip (29 Dec - Day 3 of 10)

Up at 5h30 to see the sunrise at Martins Bay

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After packing up the van and covering ourselves with sunscreen (yes! the sun was out!) we stopped at a Fruit and Veg shop. Picked up some biltong here. And some eggs. Wanted to get strawberries from Charlie's (I’ve eaten some Charlie's strawberries before – bliss!) but there were all out.

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Next stop was Snells Beach. The tide was out which allowed for a nice long stroll all around the beach.

Then onto the Brickbay Winery for their sculpture walk. The tasting room and restaurant are glass blocks built under a large glass roof. The toilets and storerooms are similar glass blocks also under the glass roof. Moving from space to space feels like you are outdoors. Saw a black sheep in a flock, plenty of ducks and some lovely water flowers.

 

The sculptures were extraordinary. Some really interesting modern stuff with cleverly chosen  locations. The walk was through garden and forest areas, took us a leisurely 2 hours or so. Half way through the walk camera 1 died.

 

We then stopped at Sandspit beach. Sorry no pics.

Then onto Matakana. We had ploughmans lunch at the Tea House at Matakana. Met up with school buddy Julia who works here. Had a look in at the ‘Cream’ design shop. It was a mish-mash of homeware stuff. Nothing spectacular. Then purchased some food at Nosh. Quite an odd site to see a Nosh in small town like Matakana, but made us rather happy. At this point camera 2 also died.

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Heading further north we stopped at Ruakaka beach for a swim. Was really good and refreshing to have a swim in the afternoon afternoon after a long drive and an unpleasant hour or so of backed up traffic around Wellsford.

Our campsite for the night was just outside Whangerei. There we set up and had a salmon braai for supper. So posh! Salmon with crème fraiche, chives and bruschetta.

Day3Map

Day 3: about 150km travelled.

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