17TH - 23RD MARCH

The plan was to drive and stay around Northland before heading South. We were planning to go up to the Bay of Islands then further north but this was a fare old trek so we decided to spilt the journey and our first stop was Waipu Cove. We found a lovely campsite right next to the beach and spent the first hour or so sorting out Bongo. We were already enjoying the fact that we had a van and realised that it was a wise move due to it being somewhat cooler than Australia. Our first experience with a New Zealand campsite was pretty good as the kitchen was fully kitted out complete with oven, much to Rob’s delight. We also made use of the barbeques and between us we rustled up a pretty good scran and complimented it with a bottle of New Zealand red. It is great visiting all of these wine making countries as not only do you get to sample all of the good wine its also really cheap!

We woke up feeling great after a good nights sleep and we were highly delighted by this, due to the fact Bongo was our home for the next 10 weeks! The seats were easy to convert into beds and then back into seats so all was good. It was a great feeling to know that we have a vehicle for the whole time we are here. After breakfast we drove the rest of the way up to the Bay of Islands, which was a very beautiful area. We had a look around the little town and even though it was mostly catering for tourists it was still pleasant enough. It was a lovely sunny day and we had spied a campsite a couple of kilometres out of town, we drove back to it and to our delight we got a spot right next to the bay. In fact the boat ramp was more or less on our pitch, so we couldn’t be much nearer the water even if we had wanted to. The campsite wasn’t the best but you couldn’t fault the location, as it was absolutely beautiful.
We had arrived mid afternoon and