Opua day 5

Today we made the decision not to leave NZ for Tonga because of the weather. Here is the passage weather forecast for next Saturday.

As you can see, we would be caught out in some quite nasty winds and waves.

So anyway we are making the most of the great temperatures here in Opua while we wait and today we walked a lot! First up the coast to Paihia, then across on the ferry to Russell.

Russell used to be called the hell hole of the Pacific with all the whalers, traders and ex-convicts so it has some colorful history. The local graveyard contains many of them.

We had lunch at a beautiful hotel called the Duke of Marlborough.

We walked another 11kms back to another ferry to get us back just after dark and on the way I got to see a kiwi. This was only the second kiwi I had ever seen in the wild so I was quite thrilled.