Bay of Islands

Over the last few days we have explored the area north of Auckland. We spent one day at Goat Island marine Reserve snorkeling but the water was too churned up after the big storm and we did not see very much. We will probably go back and try it one more time. We then took an over night trip north to the Bay of Island area. There we explored some water falls, took a ferry to Russell on the other side of the Bay. Russell is a very nice tourist town and well worth the visit. I have made contact with a real estate agent there and have secured a number of private homes for next February and March. There are 4 golf courses in the city and another 12 with in an hour drive. The rates run $30 to $5 for nine holes with sheep on the course. It may not be worth your while to take unlimited as you could play these courses for not much money using our discount book. This would be true if you were doing 2 weeks at Taupo and 2 weeks in the north. Today we have clear sky's and temps around 25 or so. The weather has been ok but not enough hot weather to spend time on the beach as it has been mainly cloudy and a few days of rain and wind. The prices seem high here but if you do the calculations and convert to Canadian it is reasonable. For example we had a very good snapper dinner on the dock over looking Bay of Islands. We paid $31 NZ for it. This is equal to a dinner in Edmonton for $20 + 5% GST, +15% tip. When we then convert to Canadian we get $30. I would not mind paying $20 in Edmonton for this meal and the view. We have tried a lot of different wines and have some to be outstanding, some to be poor and most to be average. Of course we are only spending in the range of $15 to $20 NZ .