Gee the traffic is terrific

Today we drove from Auckland to Tutukaka for a dive tomorrow at the famous Poor Knights Islands. We were girded for bad traffic as Auckland empties out bigly over the holidays, but apparently they don’t come up here… everything went smoothly.

We took the scenic route along the coast and made a couple of stops along the way. The Mangawhai Heads beach, about an hour and a half from downtown Auckland, stretches for miles and is amazingly flat. We’re into peak season so the crowds are shocking. Not.

The volunteer surf lifeguards only patrol a section about 100 yards wide, so the swimmers were all jammed up in there. I dipped my toes in, too cold to go further. For tomorrow’s diving I’ll be in a 7mm suit with a 3mm vest and hood on top of that, so should be toasty.

Found this lazy sea star in a tide pool.

Then we stopped to see the Whangarei Falls, very nice. Assuming that some of the trees are kauris, then we hit the trifecta: beach , waterfall, and big tree!

Now we’re all checked in to the hotel and hoping the rain lets up for the boat ride out to the islands tomorrow.