Saturday, Feb 23rd, Russell, New Zealand

Greetings!

I'll bet that only a few of you have ever been to the North Island of New Zealand.  Except for flying into Auckland to go to the South Island, or a three-day visit many years ago in search of my grandfather's sisters, I hadn't given it much attention. 

So we're going to spend the next 24 days exploring the rolling hills, sunny beaches, and crossroad towns which dominate this island.  So far, I can tell you that it's really beautiful.  The kind of beauty you don't find much.  It's attracted lots of retired and aging surfers.  And for those in my home county of Sonoma, imagine three times as many of you - in an area 20 time bigger.   But today, we drove up to Russell from Auckland, and there were only a couple of stops.

One was a surf beach with great bathrooms, lifeguard station, stairs to the beach, and miles of warm surf.  I could easily live here.

We'll stay here for three days, drive all the way up to the northern most tip of the island, and back down the other coast to look at some forests.

To see some of the other photos we took today, click on Saturday, Feb 23rd, Russell, New Zealand.