Poor knights & a drowned camera

So we got up the next day knowing we had to drive a bit. But before we got us some breakfast at a bakery and wanted to do the laundry. But there was none of the laundry chain we used to go near by so we got on our way to Auckland. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there. We had to go further north and as there is a toll road, which we always try to avoid, we had to drive through a town called Waiwera, which was very busy at the time we got there. So it took us some more time to get up to the dive center. But the view on the ocean was amazing as we just took the ocean road, at least I call it like this 😉

As we finally made our way up to Tutukaka, strange name I know, we got to the dive center and went out of it after 3 minutes. The woman at the reception just put us off. After this I really asked myself why they mention in their emails that we could just stop and say hello if you arrive a day before. We really thought about quitting but we decided to get something to eat first. In this area are not really a lot of self-contained campsites so we took one of the few overnight parking lots and grilled some veggies and burger patties.

The next day we went back to the dive center and we were not surprised to see the same woman at the reception again at Dive! Tutukaka. So again we had a rough start as she was very unfriendly and even asked me if I not want me to get a coffee next door… of course and I will also get one for you too… not! We gave it a chance and luckily the others were in a much better mood. We got on the boat, dressed and got a brief. And on our way to the divespot we were surprised by a school of dolphins.

As we got in the water my camera drove me nuts. This damn thing just didn’t work anymore although it just did 1 hour ago on the surface… perfect. So unfortunately I can’t show you any pictures of the dives, I can just tell you what we saw: lots and lots of sting rays, nudis, scorpion fish, corals and some more beautiful colorful fish 🐠

The Poor Knights are a group of islands about 25 km away from the east coast from the north peninsula of NZ. They told us, that it’s not allowed to take a step on this island for the public because the Maori cursed it after the tribe, who lived there got killed in a very brutal way. But the prohibition helps to stabilize the natural flora and fauna there and also the Tuataras to reproduce.

During our break we drove into a little cave. The biggest cave of that type in volume. Please don’t ask me what it was called again, I just forgot. 😅

After our second dive we just had a little chat with our guide and the others of the group. Luckily one of them carried a big professional camera and told me I can get the pictures afterwards, jippie 🙌

As we got back we decided to look out for a shower as we wanted to get rid of the salt on our skin. So we drove to some pool facilities in Whangarei and got our first hot shower for almost 3 weeks and just paid 3$ pp. We got a hint, that it’s allowed to camp behind the facilities and did so. It was pretty calm, our dive equipment could dry a bit and we switched on the grill again. We talked about the day and thought what the best solution would be to get a new underwater camera, as the lens of mine was really done by then.

Keep yourself updated about a day full broken stuff and hope to find an answer for real good uw-pics in Fiji.