Jordan

Bobby and Natalie on our drive from Whangarie to Paihia. We made a quick stop to stretch and take in the views. We hiked around for a little while and found a cave. We went through to the other side and found ourselves in this really beautiful little cove. The sun came out, and stayed out too! Long enough for us to roll up our jeans and take our shoes off! We had some pretzels and nutella and really enjoyed ourselves!


















Whangarie falls.

Well, we bought a car. Named him Jordan, and with his help made a bee line out of the city! We will post a pic as soon as we get one. Jordan is an 89 subaru legacy wagon. Perfect for the four of us. It was 900 NZ dollars~ which translates to about 650 US dollars. We named it Jordan after the poor bloke who showed us the car, he had quite the personality as he taxied us all around Auckland trying to find our hostel in the rain, with a million questions flying at him- all along with two back flat tires! We had the car inspected and other than a "leaky boot" and shoddy tires it was a great car. We had the "boot" replaced- and two new rear tires. Every day has been in an adventure since we drove the car away on Monday- five minutes down the road Maegan pulled on her viser to block the sun, it popped right off. The next day Johnny was driving and got a ticket for speeding in a school zone, it was quite humorous when the officer asked him his occupation. He's a teacher. When we asked how school zones are marked the officer replied with "Aww ya know ya just dont drive too far over the speed limit when ya see a school, thats all really" Hmmm, good to know. Bobby was driving the next day and we were all startled to hear a screeching on his side, we pulled over to find a large piece of plastic dragging along the bottom of the car, we pulled it off, shrugged and threw it away. Mae and I thought we should strap it to the top for safe keeping, but the boys wouldnt have it. Today was pretty unadventurous as far as the car goes- other than driving a manual on the left side of the road up a mountain while its pouring rain.

It has been fantastic to get out of the city. Posted are pics of a waterfall we hiked to in Whangerie pronounced Fungary. On our way from Auckland to Whangerie we stopped at a cheese factory too! Whangerie itself was nothing spectacular, but the drive from their to Panhia (where we are this evening and tomorrow) was like nothing Bobby and I have ever seen. Winding roads, green hills with sheep and cows grazing, and ocean on the other side, with mountains on the horizon.

I will post more tomorrow with pics of the drive to Panhia. Our plan tomorrow is to try to find a job here in Panhia- its a bit of a long shot but worth the try.