Travel Journal:

New Zealand - Whitianga Adventures


Whitianga Adventures 2006-11-11
 
Today was the most amazing day. When I got up I saw it was bright and sunny I was totally excited for my kayaking trip. I had signed up the previous day for a half day trip around Cathedral Cove.

I drove over and stopped on my way to get some suncreen. The rest of the world has sunscreen that's way better than the US because there's some ingredient that the FDA won't approve. I can't remember what it is but I bought some sunscreen that's has much different active ingredients than my US sunscreen.

My kayak group was made up of 4 boats and the guide. I got paired up with the only other single, a girl named Diane from Canada. We got super lucky and the weather and surf allowed them to take us on the Remote Coast tour. This goes through volcanic remains - tunnels, caves, blowholes. Marty, our guide, said that they only do this trip about 6 times a year. Anyway it was totally amazing. We had snacks in an active  blowhole. We scooted our way through tunnels and caves.

Diane was really cool. She's kayaked before, and so had I so we were a good team. Only, I've never been in an real ocean kayak with foot pedals for the rudders so it took some getting used to. No one else in the group had kayaked before so they were a mess constantly hitting us and cutting us of. It was annoying, but I knew they didn't know any better so I didn't get mad.

Afterwards I exchanged numbers with Diane and we made plans to go to the Hot Water Beach. I left my car at the ferry landing and took the ferry back to whitianga. I came back and ate lunch and showered. She texted me aroudn 3pm and we took the ferry back across. We did a walk (ie hike) to a The Rock, a scenic view point looking down on the harbor. It was a bit crazy since the markers led off a cliff. Then we wandered around and did a little bouldering before we realized we'd been on "the rock".

We took my car to look for the   Shakespeare's Lookout walk. We parked
 
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