Monday 13th October – Hahei and around
We headed into Hahei town and I was pleased to finally buy some earrings. I´d been earringless since leaving a bag full of them in Sydney, well other than the pair I broke in Asia and have been carrying round ever since in the vain hope that someone can fix them that is.
Having sorted out my jewellery situation we drove to Thames where we ate prior to heading to the butterfly house. The place was amazing with thousands of butterflies from around the World. Amongst my favourites were the luminous blue butterflies and a crazily bright green and black butterfly. As well as native butterflies, apparently a lot of the butterflies are imported from other places, such as South America, in their chrysalis phases.
After the butterfly house we headed to “Water World” which was basically a park with various water-based nodels and activities on offer. The place was great if very zany. I managed to break my nail in a giant hamster wheel and also to completely soak Lance with a water cannon. My boat, “007” also beat his (I forget the name, it was probably doofus or something) rather convincingly, although he claimed I cheated. The place had a cafe attached and I tried some amazing ice cream with flavours like hokey-pokey which I have no idea why you can´t get in England. It was this awesome ice-cream with honey-cone pieces. We also got a rocky road which I haven´t seen in England. It´s basically a chocolate type bar with marshmallows in This one had a biscuit base and a layer of raspberry jam in though. Mmmmmm….well I had done my sit-ups, honest gov!
We headed to Whitianga and then on the most amazing coastal road up from Thames. There were thousands of nesting birds. Not being a twitcher, I´m afraid that I´m unable to elaborate here. They were cool though and there were lots of them. Ooooh how profound!