Calculating arrival times, deciding when to depart, choosing whether to go slower or faster are calculated using speed, time and distance. As a human, speed can be thrilling or terrifying. Distance can be healthy or create the feeling of loneliness and helplessness. Time passes too slowly, too quickly or just right.
Finding the balance of speed, time and distance to continue exploring the Bay of Islands proved simple given the variety of options available. A day on the bay with the Fullers Ferry Cream Trip took us to the Hole in the Rock, Urupukpuka Island, Black Rocks and Marsden Cross.
Beautiful islands, waters, rocks, history – fantastic. The bizarre event of “Boom-netting” left us wondering why 20 people want to grab on to a net attached to a ferry while the captain tries to rip off the tourist’s hands or bathing suits by accelerating and changing directions. Perhaps the intent is to teach all three of Newton’s laws? Adventure travel in New Zealand.
A human face naturally profiled by the rock formation. 
Whether on land or water, New Zealand’s myriad of size, shapes and types of boats delight and tempt us.
On land, the area around Pahia has it all – waterfalls, walking tracks, ferns, trapping boxes with “educational” messages as well as abundant known and unknown sounds.
Russell Boating Club’s annual Tall Ships Regatta took place in early January. The race conclude with a traditional Maori hangi cooking 800 meals in an umu using heated rocks buried in a pit oven. On regatta day, the umu came alive at 9 am.
The regatta inspired us to rent a boat to be part of the action. As evidenced by our rental, participating in the race was not a good option.
While most of the world is dealing with terrible surges in COVID cases and deaths, New Zealand goes on in a surreally normal (oxymoron?) fashion. At the pub in Russell, a band performed indoors to a packed house. For close to a year, we avoided going inside any building with masked or unmasked people other than a grocery. Sensory overload and guilt hit fairly quickly.
Distance and time away from the US during the COVID surge and post-election insurrection make home seem remote and unfamiliar. While the events seem outside of NZ, some of the QAnonsense is even appearing in a gift shop in the small town of Russell.
or, WSGPGMMF? Where Some Gullible People Go, Many May Follow
Alas, our time at the Arcadia Lodge and Russell come to an end. We leave with new friends, fond memories and desire to return.
Our fabulous Arcadia Lodge hosts, Peter and Greg
A bird in the hand…
Over the course of four days, we work our way down from Russell to Auckland where we pick up a motorhome rental for 30 days.
On the way, we visited friends Hilton and Melva at their B&B near Tutukaka.
Looks like a miscalculation of speed, time and distance (and direction). Whoops.
Off we go to explore the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty in the motorhome. As someone said to us, the NZ road designers were probably paid by the number of curves. They were definitely not paid to build shoulders on the road. Duncan is going to have a fun time driving the 7.2 meter x 2.4 meter wide motorhome on the “wrong” side of the road. Looks like more speed time and distance is in our future.
