Matauri Bay from the top of the hill before descending down to the beach.Road down very twisty and steep, thought it might be a good road, although short, for Top Gear drive. Beach deserted, grey sky and a stiff breeze. Skylark overhead and swallows low down. The Greenpeace ship, Rainbow warrior is a notable ship wreck just off these islands and the hill to the left has a memorial piece of art at the top. Lovely sandy beach with good shell deposits at the high tide mark.

Tautanga Bay. To get here drove through a Kiwi sensitive area complete with yellow markings on the road. Again beach deserted, mostly sand and shingle here but did pick up some small white shells based on a whorl pattern. Stunning scenery to get to this bay, saw cormorants, gulls and some native birds that will need to be identified.

Shot of part of the rock formation at Taupo Bay. Again lovely sandy beach with a couple of people walking their dogs.

It is Saturday - where is everybody?

Took more shots of some islands in Whangaroo Bay - Stephenson Isle and Flat top isle.

Left Taupo Bay and drove around the coast to Mangonui and then Coopers Beach - part of Doubtless Bay - lovely names. had a very pleasant chat to the lady in the information office who suggested several ideas for local places to see and walk to. Unfortunately time was getting on and these will have to wait for another year. She did point out a car museum that was on my route so called in.

Matthews museum consisted of an isetta bubble car, a mini, half dozen yank tanks which had been renovated to a high degree, an XJS Jaguar and several other cars plus lots of tractors. Most of them were McCormack who must have had the franchise for this area. Have seen a couple at the steam shows but I guess every model was represented in this museum. The interesting items was all the odds and sods around the walls etc, all farming orientated but some very pertinent to NZ i.s. the sheep shearing equipment. Had some nice small stationary engines, locally made, types which I have not seen before. One other item caught my eye and that was two pictures, man and his wife. he was the first missionary in that part of the Island and the caption under her picture referred to her being born in Dorsetshire and her maiden name was Davies (Sue/Callum - you need to research Mark's family tree here as there could well be a link).

As it was getting dark left the museum and headed for Kerikeri, over the mountains, very twisty roads in places. Evening spent again having a chat, a german couple, 1 girl from Hong Kong and 2 from Malaysia had arrived, the latter 3 just for the night. Plenty of chat of course about the english game, but more importantly germany tomorrow!!!