WR Foster

This is our last post so to speak of our trip to New Zealand.

We went over to Russel Thursday. It’s either a long drive or a short ferry ride so we took the ferry.

We wandered around, stopped at the Russel Museum and then ate lunch at the Duke of Marlborough Hotel. Next to the hotel is a Fig tree that was planted in the early 1800’s and survived a fire a number of years later that burned down the Hotel.

After lunch the wind and waves were looking a bit ominous so we took the ferry back for a leisurely afternoon.

The next day we went in to Kerikeri. I had a haircut and Julie wandered into some of the shops. Afterwards we had lunch at the Ake Ake winery (Ake Ake means for ever and ever). It’s not as fancy as the Marsden Estate winery but the food was very good.

After we got back to our apartment we took a walk to the other end of Paihia and back.

Today we walked down to the other end of Paihia and up the hill at the end of the beach to a lookout point. The path kept going so we did too but it ended up in someone’s back yard. We made our way out their driveway and continued down a very long steep hill to another beach. The prospect of climbing back up the hill made us decide to take the beach route all the way back to Paihia.

We stopped at the arts and crafts market in Paihia and wandered around and then had lunch at Charlotte’s Kitchen.

Paihia doesn’t have a proper library but at least they have a phone booth.

It’s Saturday here – so lots of people on the beach.

Tomorrow we might go on another hike but it’s mainly a packing day so next post will be from Nanaimo.