Tuesday 26 January

Happy Australia Day – a day no different at all in this our rival country in so many respects! Our next stop in Whatkatane was purely and simply to allow us to visit White Island a volcanic island which is still active sitting 1 ½ hours by boat offshore. We arrived a little early and our room was not ready so we took the opportunity to visit Ohope Beach.

This is supposedly “New Zealand’s favourite beach”. Nothing remarkable so far as we were concerned so we were happy we had taken the time today to visit rather than when we take off around East Cape on Thursday.

After checking in we caught up with some things and relaxed. Sadly we had been informed that the boat trip was in danger of being cancelled. It could not go today because the sea swell was up around 5m due to an ex-cyclone bearing down on the North Island.

We walked in to town for dinner and discussed options if we did not go out on the boat. When we returned to the motel it was inevitably the case the boat was cancelled for tomorrow. Oh well on to plan B.

Moutohora Island, a volcanic cone, emerging from the murky mists

Messy surf at Ohope Beach dubbed "New Zealand's favourite beach"

Wednesday 27 January

As we did not have to be up early for the boat, we had an easy morning then walked the path following the river. On our way back a little fox terrier was following a couple of young girls. When they asked if it was our dog, we decided we should take him back to the town with us as he had a registration number on his collar but no name or phone number.

It turned out her name was Bella and she lived quite some way away. She had obviously got out somehow and being a very friendly dog she just followed the girls and eventually us. She came when she was called up even though we did not know her name. The ladies in the Information centre called the council and they told us her name and she was left with them. So presumably her owners were contacted to collect her.

In the afternoon we went to a movie. There are many well nominated movies around at present so at least we could keep up while we are away. This Quentin Tarantino movie was something I could well have missed. Just the name Quentin Tarantino should have been warning enough! Oh well the ice cream was nice!