Ohope to Little Waihi

 Last Saturday, we came to Ohope, where we are settled for about 10 days. It's a very big camp and covers about 7 hectares. They have a pool, mini golf and a huge trampoline that is filled with air and gets blown up each morning. There are always children on it. There is a big movie screen too, but that would only be used in the summer.

The fish cleaning station is one of the best we have ever seen. It even has a bucket for the scraps that gets emptied every day.

Eddie went fishing on the Sunday and caught 2 fish. We shared 1 with some people on the beach, who were watching what we were doing. The man was very interested in the drone and his wife told me that her husband would probably want one now. We should get a commission ha ha.

We went out to dinner on Sunday for our wedding anniversary at a little cafe down the road from here. 51 years! Who would have thought!

Monday morning Eddie went down before breakfast and caught another nice size snapper.

Last Tuesday morning, we found a water hose had come loose underneath in the night and there was a flood under there. We were attached to a tap, so the water just kept flowing. We don't know when it started, but there was a lot of water. It was pouring and windy too, so Eddie wasn't happy. ( as you could imagine).Wednesday we bought a hose clamp, so it can't happen again. Fingers crossed ha ha.

We like Whakatane. It's a nice town with a good array of shops. We had a good walk around on Wednesday to check out where is what. The supermarket is huge. It took ages to do the shopping, so we could find everything.

Apart from the first 2 days, we didn't have a lot of luck with fishing at Ohope. The weather wasn't the best, but when it was the fish weren't there either. I guess that's why it's called fishing and not catching.

 Our body clocks have adjusted to daylight saving time. Strangely,  we woke up at the normal time, it was really an hour later. I thought we would have slept in a bit until our body clocks adjusted, but no. I did feel a bit sleep deprived for a few days this week, but I am ok now.

As a result of the long weekend, there are a lot more campers in Ohope than there were. I really like watching the kids playing on the big trampoline. There is someone on it all day. It is big rubber thing that they blow up with air in the mornings and let down at night. It had repairs done to it on Sunday, so there was no jumping that day. 

On Monday, this week, we came to Little Waihi. The camping ground is on a small peninsular that goes out into an estuary that empties out at low tide. We are surrounded with water on 3 sides at high tide. There are a lot of oyster catchers, black back gulls and seagulls living here. Across the estuary is Pukehina, which we can see out of our back window.

The weather has been cool and cloudy with a cold north easterly wind since we have been here. It is a bit of a trek to the beach and at high tide you can't get there. Today we went to a beach called Newdicks Beach. It is access through a farm and costs $5 for a car to go down. Fair enough when he maintains it. There were two men on bobcats when we went down working on the track. A load of metal came down while we were there. We put out one set and caught a good size snapper that we will get two feeds out of, so we were pleased about that.  Eddie put out another set, but it began to rain, so it wasn't out for very long and came in empty.

The showers here are a bit odd. The shower head is up high and points at the back wall, so I nearly drown as the water is pouring straight onto my head. I don't find it hot enough either and there is no taps to do any adjustments. You put in your coin and away it goes and stops about three minutes later. It's just enough time to get clean and wash your hair if you want too. 

The photos below were taken at Newdicks Beach. There was even a long drop loo

Looking back towards Little Waihi

Looking towards Waihi