One very surprising thing about New Zealand is that it's hot. Perhaps not always, but to get sunburnt wasn't what I expected. So when one afternoon in Waiheke we went fishing offshore I didn't expect to be peeling a couple of days later. But so it was and the price was small for the excitement of being out in a little boat with someone who knew what they were talking about/doing and actually catching fish! The technique for the amateur is to bait 2 hooks above the sinker with small fish and let the sinker drop to the bottom and then haul it up a few inches. At the first place it didn't work,so we sped off to another favourite spot - nothing much visible on the surface to indicate it - and during the next hour or two we had magnificent haul of snappers - 16 in all plus the one that got away which was much bigger than all the others. L had caught it and we held at the surface while fiddling with the camera to get a photo. But they're bright, these fish, and so he was gone. No fish, no photo.
26 January - This was the day of the Auckland Regatta, including a tugboat race won by the oldest steam tug. The others, modern diesel tugs, said they held back to give it a chance. We had a fantastic view of it all, but like Cowes Week, once the small boat races start it's impossible to tell what's going on. And then:
27 January - The train from Auckland to Wellington takes 12 hours and leaves pretty early in the morning, so Chrissie arranged for us to stay in Auckland for the night so we could be at the station in time. The taxi picked us up at 6.15 just as Mike was arriving from Canada where he had been ski-ing. We literally had tme to say hello at the corner of the street and then off to the station.
(We had left it as late as possible before leaving Waiheke for Auckland on 25th - just time for a pizza in the evening - and leaving a tropical island was predictably difficult.)
