Northlands - Day 4: Sailing the Bay of Islands

Hello, Tom here.  On Day 4, we took a sailboat with Captain Mike out into the Bay of Islands.  People just abbreviate it BOI.  It is a major tourist destination and very pretty.

Here are the boys in a tree awaiting our boat's departure.  Jasper is getting his pirate face on:

Here I am steering.  I did a great job - we hit nothing.

Me in the boat.

Boys liked sitting out of the wind.

Family in shades:

 The Bay of Islands is filled with about 150 small islands - we sailed between and around several of them during the day.  We had great weather for sailing.

We stopped at one island and went ashore in the dinghy.  Here is a shot back at our sailboat.

Here is Jasper exploring the beach...

 ...and Aidan a tree.

 We hiked up a steep path...

 ...looking out over the little bay where we'd parked the boat.

This island had been used for defenses during World War 2 and the remnants of the fortifications are still there.

Here is the view out off the end of the island.

Apparently, only I know what you are supposed to do when someone takes your picture.

The islands are volcanic, of course, so some of them look kind of crazy:

A rare complete family photo!

After the boat ride, we drove over to Kerikeri.  There is a car ferry that takes you across the narrow bay, but Google maps said the ferry only saves ten minutes.  I decided we'd drive around the bay instead.  Turns out, Google maps doesn't tell you when the roads are not paved.  It was a harrowing trip into the jungle and up a mountain side on a gravel road that made a car ferry sound pretty awesome by the end.  We made it to our next hotel, The Avalon in Kerikeri.  It was the nicest place we stayed.  We had our own little house, we had pigs and goats and chickens out our backdoor, and the kids had a trampoline.