Porter again,
Weekend before last, we went on the road once again. We are scouting out places that we can do day trips to and activities that we can do, rather than going one place and not being able to do much due to economic issues.
Our latest trip was supposed to be just out to Omaha beach, however we got there so quickly we decided to keep going and eventually made our way out a place called Leigh and then eventually over to Goat Island.
We started out from our house and went through Orewa to bypass the toll road that starts really close to our house and continues on until the town of Puhoi.
From Puhoi, we kept going North and went toward Warkworth and then turning East on Matakana Rd until we ended up Omaha and then Leigh.
We found ourselves going through wine country and there were many, many rows of grapes and chateaus all around.
Once we looked around through Leigh, we decided to keep going North and ended up at the Goat Island Marine Reserve. I am really glad we made the trip.
We have decided that this top of the list for places to go during the Summer break. The reserve is a protected marine habitat that doesn’t allow fishing, but allows snorkelling and has glass bottom boat tours around the island.
We climbed over the volcanic rock that had grooves all in it and looked over to see tropical fish, right there! You could almost touch them. We thought that was the coolest thing. There were bunches of people hanging out at the beach and a few people who swam over to the island and were walking around. Lots of kayakers as well.
On the way back we actually went through the town of Omaha Beach and was surprised at all the new construction that was going on there. This area is about 2 hours away from Auckland so we aren’t really sure what the source of income is out there. I think that would be a great place to retire to though. Extremely beautiful ocean views and a brand new house to live in.
