April 4th Drive Home from batch house and The Bay Of Islands Russell

  We all woke up and ate breakfast... Then packed up are gear and cleaned the batch house. We packed the car and got ready for the long car ride home. Left around 11AM and stopped for lunch around 12 PM at a really nice bakery... I had a sandwich and for dessert some AMAZING carrot cake... We ate by a pond with ducks and a little kitten... After lunch we made another hour long trip to The Bay of Islands and took a ferry ride to the small island Russell. Russell used to be called the "hellhole of the Pacific"... It didn't really look like it to me... Anyhow, it was a whaling station in the 1800's and attracted many colorful characters, mostly men that liked to drink and frequent brothels... Oh yes the Russell was the head quarters for the Red Light District. Russell is also known for having the first Church built on it in the whole of New Zealand, The Church is named "Christ Church" as well as this, for a period of 9 months in 1840, Russell was the capital of New Zealand... Now Auckland is... When I saw the Church I made sure to sign the book for visitors and saw the bullet holes in the walls of the Church which have been there since the lawless days of the 1800's. 

      After our view of the town we had some coffee at a Historic Hotels dining hall. We sat out on the porch and enjoyed the incredible view from the porch... Then we made our way back to the car for a ride a magnificent lookout point... Here is a video of the view... Unreal... 

  After the look out... We decided to take the more scenic road... Or should I say the more windy road... I got some great shots of the ocean and cliff side... After an hour of the windy road Olly started to get a bit car sick and so did I.... We got out and stretched then... They got back in the car and made our way to Whangarei for some dinner... We went to a great spot for TEA time... We all had the King fish except for Olly who had the chicken breast stuffed with brie cheese... Dave got dessert.... While Rose got tea and Olly Mexican Hot Chocolate... I was stuffed so I did the talking...

After dinner we drove another hour and a half and finally made it to the house by 10:30 PM... WOW what a day... Traveling sure takes a lot out of you.... But we got to see some fantastic views and of course Russell island too.