The travel log of Vic and Steve

Photos on my iPhone just can't do this beautiful coastline justice. Only 3 hours drive north of Auckland and 30 minutes beyond Whangarei the Tutukaka Coast is warm, accessible and spectacular.  We have rented a gorgeous beachfront Bach which overlooks a sheltered wee bay used by moored yachts and weekend kayakers. The Tutukaka Coast is a mixture of stone and sand beaches, this one is stone with clear water. Imogen and I enjoyed a fab swim yesterday, was warm and remained shallow for about 50 metres or so.  It is just so much warmer and humid than home, loving it. Our vegan gluten free bbq's are awesome too although Steve did sneaks some chops into the mix.  Today we walked the Whananaki Coastal Walkway. A fascinatingly diverse track with spectacular vistas along the way.  The track itself crosses private farm lands, through forests and follows coastline both on rocks and beaches.  The track quality is excellent. There are gates and styles to navigate and as we m...

When you fly into Wellington from the south (meaning it's a northerly and likely a tad bumpy) you see this fabulous lighthouse standing on a headland out the window.  It was pretty still this morning so we thought - great day for Pencarrow, one of the many walks on our summer list. Well by the time we mucked around with domestic chores, found we had no food so shopped and drove to the end of the road in Eastbourne it was midday before we set off.  The track for the majority is flat and gravel driveway like. It follows the shoreline with a steep steep sheer hill on the other side. The round trip walk is 4.5 hours according to the sign and I would describe 4 hours of it as easy walking, with 30 mins up to the lighthouse and down more steep and definitely watch your feet territory.  The views are spectacular. If the wind hadn't come up it would have been awesome to stop at the top a while but by then it was steady and we could hardly see Khandallah across the harbour for den...