DAY 3

Week 1

PAIHAI (Northland, NZL)

Monday April 16th, 2018

TODAYS MILEAGE – 8 miles or 13 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 2,307 miles or 3,713 kilometres



Several weeks ago, ET and I had spoken about organising a fishing trip out on the Bay Of Plenty, which is why we were up stuff-arseing around at 4AM – I thought we were on holidays FFS!

We thought we’d load up on the cereal and caffeine before heading down to the wharf for a 7:15 a.m. cast off. Upon taking a ‘woman’s look’ at the confirmation, we found out we had to be there at 6:50 a.m., not a big deal in the scheme of things, but I reckon we would have had the irits with ourselves if we done our dough over such a silly mistake.

We left the wharf on our ½ day Spot X snapper fishing charter just as the sun was rising, in cloudy overcast skies and slow drizzling rain, but within 10 minutes of setting sail we were in brilliant sunshine and the dawning of a brilliant day.

We spent the best part of four hours on the Wairere running live bait rigs around the various islands and tidal spots that our skipper - George Turner-King thought that where we'd land some decent catches. With 4 Kiwi's on the boat, it was game on for fishing bragging rights, but with everyone going home with a decent sized snapper each - I'd say it was a draw. With the two snappers I actually caught myself, I reckon we'd have got dinner sorted for tonight then.

Had a good giggle at ET's expense, as the only thing he caught was the fishing line of the angler on the other side of the boat - not once, not twice, but three times in total. And here I’m thinking ET is a great fisherman based on a few of his stories.

ET and the girls decided to head over to nearby town of Kerikeri to check out the Makana Confections. I decided to pass on this and park up on the lounge with a good book for the afternoon.

Dinner was a collaboration of efforts and ingredients with the snapper that ET & I returned with going down a treat.



• BAY OF ISLANDS ~ Spot X Fishing Charters (Northland, NZL)
• PAIHAI ~ Air B&B (Northland, NZL)