Saturday 18th Feb

 We had a comfortable night’s sleep and when ready in the morning, headed out to a nearby shopping centre for breakfast before hitting the road again. The main motorway was easy to navigate and we made reasonable time arriving at a lovely and charming town called Whangarei. Here we explored the Town Basin Marina, the Hundertwasser Art Gallery building and Artisans markets where we spent time watching a glass blower at work. We saw a fabulous huge, rolling ball clock which was a unique sculpture with 35 bowling balls running along stainless steel rails and dropping at various times to give you an accurate reading of the time. We happened to be there when the clock changed from 12.59pm to 1pm and we excitedly watched balls going everywhere. We have been quite lucky with the roads, fallen trees and power etc., since the tropical cyclone, earlier this week. Most of the roads have been cleared and are passable with caution but today we did have to make a detour from the main northern motorway as it is still out of action due to damage from the cyclone. It didn’t matter as we just had to drive over to the coast road a little earlier. As we ventured further north to Whangarei Heads and Ocean Beach, the damage from the cyclone was very obvious. Many huge trees had been up-rooted and braches broken off others. Road- signs had been blown out of the ground and in many places the rain had washed out or washed away large sections on the edge of the roads. We called into the little town of Kawakawa on our way to the Bay of Islands because it is famous for its very unusual Hundertwasser toilets and it was worth the visit. (Will have to look up “Hundertwasser” as this name keeps reoccurring in this this area.) I’ve never taken photos inside a toilet before but I had to here! We arrived at our accommodation called “Amazing bay views on TE Haumi” and it was certainly aptly named. We have a very comfortable AirBnB with the most amazing views of the Bay of Islands, indeed.