Leaving the Coromandel Penisula, I headed north of Auckland to the area that the Kiwis call the Northlands.  The most visited and famous part is the Bay of Islands where i am now staying.  As  I did not have a hotel booked as I got north of Auckland, I had to hunt around at 9pm at night and finally found this overpriced place in a camping park.  I got a little cabin to myself, though it slept about 12.  In the morning I noticed these girls outside in uniforms doing exercises and then suddenly I got a knock on the door with the announcement that morning exercises would begin in 10 minutes.  Well, I quickly through on my clothes, dumped my luggage in the car, and quietly sped the hell out of there before I got stuck doing girl camp activities and maybe making dinner for 200 kids.

And later I got to the Bay of Islands which is quite nice and somewhat tropical.  I noticed one of the famous Kiwi sailing boats... heading into the wind.... under full... power (my kind of sailing)-

 It is a pretty bay-

And I went for a swim in the South Pacific-

And, after all of my screw ups on this trip (and they are many),  they had a retirement home with my name on it-