Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Friday was our last full day together so we spent the day with each other. That being said, the sail maker did come around to inspect the boat and discuss work to be done.

Once everyone was up we went for a walk from the boat to the top of nearby Parihaka within Parihaka Scenic Reserve. It turned out to be a pleasant workout up to a great viewpoint over the town.

We then took the car to visit Whangarei Falls which we’ve been meaning to do for ages but only just got round to it. They turned out to be fairly impressive although it looked like they were down on water due to the recent dry spell. There was a circular path that took us over the top of the falls, down to the bottom and back up again. At the bottom Ben and Sam were able to find there way along the rocks behind the falls without getting too wet.

We were back at the boat in time for the boys to have a quick shower before we headed off to watch the movie “Unstoppable”.  Although the pretext of a runaway train not being the most unique idea the movie was made well and quite tense in places.  We all enjoyed it.

Our last dinner was, no surprise, a curry.  The boys will miss Helen’s signature dinner so hopefully this will leave them with good memories.  We then headed off to the bowling alley and had a couple of games where none of us did too well but had fun all the same.

Back on the boat we still had time to watch the movie “Get Him to the Greek” which made us all giggle in places – particularly with the song lyrics.  The boys then went out on the town for a while while Helen and I retired for the night.

Today Ben and Sam leave us for their flight back to NJ.  Sam goes back to his art studies and Ben goes back to his job hunting.  He is pursuing an actuarial job in the NY area and has a few leads already.  Fortunately the job market is picking up and actuarial work seems to be in some demand these days.  Our fingers are crossed.

We’re getting better at packing our tents so we were out of our campsite in good time.  Our first stop, as planned, was the 3D maze.  This turned out to be a lot of fun.  The maze was made of wooden walls and included a number of overhead walkways with the maze snaking around under them.  Our challenge was to make our way to each coloured corner and exit the way we came in.  Ben finished first, I came second and Sam and Helen finished together.  While waiting, Ben and I were given a second challenge which was to find our way through to the second exit in under 4 minutes.  I made it in 2 but Ben got lost.  A lot of fun all round.

The rest of the journey was simply long.  We stopped for lunch along the way and Helen took over for an hour driving when I became tired.  We arrived in Whangarei around 4pm and had time to move the boat onto a slip near the fishing dock.  It’s quieter than the last place we slipped but a little further away from the amenities.

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I have now caught up on publishing all our recent pictures and video.

After three days in a motel it was off to Rotorua for some more camping. Somehow our gear had expanded further making the car seem more packed than ever. Despite this we all squeezed in and headed off. We stopped off at a free to view boiling mud pool on the way. On the spur of the moment we also stopped off at the Waimangu Volcanic Valley. It’s claim to fame was having the world’s largest boiling lake. Having seen the second largest in Dominica we’d always felt we should see the largest. Having seen both the Dominica lake was better although the walk through the Waimangu Valley was worth the time spent.

Reaching Rotorua we looked at three separate campsites before settling on the first one we found closest to town.

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In the evening we walked into town which seemed dead at that time and ate at Hell’s Pizza. They were tasty but one was insanely hot.