We started saving money in the Bay of Islands, where the main attraction is a boat trip round the bay to see and swim with the dolphins. It sound great but costs 85 N.Z.dollars each. The weather was great and the sea calm so we thought we'd try our own tour using our rafting boat. With the boat packed full with food, flippers and 3
funseekers we paddled across the bay in search of dolphins. Soon our little boat was surrounded by dolphins, they were just metres away and diving anf swimming under the boat. Rupert dived into the water to swim with them whilst Yannik and I watched their acrobatics from the boat. It was incredible watching the huge, graceful animals and definately worth the money we saved!
Since then we decided not to do the 4-wheel-drive up ninety mile beach and through the Te Paki stream. Instead we took our favourite 4-wheeled-bus,
Lucky Luke.
He left the 4WD trucks standing as he zoomed along the ninety mile beach (actually 96km) only pausing to get stuck in the Te Paki stream which we then found out was a quick sand stream (treibsand).
As Lucky Luke sank slowly into the sandy river we tried our best to dig him out but things were getting worse. With only a few centimetres to go until the motor reached the sand, we began to worry.
But at the last minute, like in all the best films, a pick up appeared in the distance and with only milimetres left, he pulled us out of the sand and we were back on the road. An organised tour couldn't get much more exciting
than that!
After that we found ourselves a dry place to park and walked up the sand dunes to use our new duotone snowboards for the first time on the famous sandsurf dunes of Te Paki. We've still not given up hope of finding snow though, perhaps on the Ruapehu volcano but that's still to come.
We spent the rest of our time up north surfing and windsurfing with our own boards (saving on the hire money too). Now we're heading south to see what action awaits us there, but don't worry Rupert hasn't got any plans to jump from a bridge with an expander attatched to his feet.............YET!
