We visit the hellhole of the Pacific* and celebrate our anniversary

It's our wedding anniversary on Wednesday and this year it's Dave's turn to organise something, so this weekend we finally got out of Auckland for the first time and went to Russell in the Bay of Islands.

Thanks to some nifty wording in the NZ consultant contract which entitles doctors covering for absent colleagues to be paid locum rates for the person they're covering, our weekend staying away was mainly paid for by a couple of recent on calls when Dave has been both registrar and consultant for a few hours.  Cool.  We drove up on Friday afternoon and stopped en route for a picnic next to a roadside van run by a man from Newbury who sold us tea made from Yorkshire Tea tea-bags.  Yay!  We haven't yet got out of the UK mindset for calculating travelling times - bombing down the motorway at 80 isn't an option here as the motorway disappears about 20 miles north of Auckland, and it was wiggles and hills all the way north, but we got to Russell about 8:30.  We were staying in a stunning beachfront house called - with stunning unoriginality - 'Seaview'.  A decidedly naff name, but it was rather gorgeous - large open plan living room and kitchen, bedrooms with decks overlooking the sea (the picture at the top is of the view from our bedroom deck), lemon, lime and avocado trees growing in the garden (I can't begin to describe how exciting I find it to be living in a country where I can write that, but that's probably just me and my food fascination) and a kayak for our use.

Tilly unfortunately decided to have a really disturbed night - Dave asked her why she hadn't done good sleeping and she said 'because I was sad and very cross' - which we'd kind of guessed, and I'd slept really badly too.  I'm ashamed to admit that this was because of the noise of the sea (I know, I know - really unappreciative on my part and all I can say is: sorry - but the waves were just really swooshy) so we were all a bit shattered on Saturday.  However, it was only 20 metres or so to the beach and a glorious sunny morning, so we spent the first part of the day doing beachy things.  Dave went out in the kayak and then took Reuben out with him.

He looks very pleased with himself in the photo - however, a naughty wave dared to splash him a few seconds after it was taken and he then declared 'I never want to go in a kayak again!'.  He calmed down enough to enjoy the rest of the ride but couldn't be persuaded to try it again.  The keyholder for Seaview had given us a good tip about where to pick mussels, so we moved to the other end of 'our' beach and filled the sandcastle bucket with green-lipped mussels, which are about twice the size of the ones in the UK.
Reuben's eaten them several times before and loves them, so they were later transformed into dinner.

After lunch we went into Russell which is one of the oldest European settlements in New Zealand, dating all the way back to the early 1800s (we're still learning to think of 'old' in different terms!).  It has New Zealand's oldest petrol station (1930), church (1836) and licensed drinking establishment (1827).  It's a very nice small town, slightly twee and self-conscious of itself, but we wandered around and found some delicious ice cream.  Fig and honey and gingernut were very good, but Reuben preferred the raspberry sorbet and has declared it to be more favourite than chocolate ice cream, which is praise indeed.

The weather was just as fabulous on Sunday, so this time I had a go in the kayak - great fun and the water wasn't too cold, which is pretty good when you consider that this is the equivalent of the end of February in northern hemisphere terms.  We had lunch in Russell and then started the drive home.  We took a detour and stopped off at Mangawhai Heads where we discovered a fantastic sand dune which we all enjoyed running/falling down.  Then fush and chups (in NZ English - I feel a blog post coming on about English as she is spoke over here, but that will have to wait) - and the rest of the drive back to Auckland.  There are some more photos of our weekend here.

*If you're wondering what was so hellish about Russell, that label refers back to when it was a whaling station in the early 1800s and had a reputation for drinking, wenching and fighting.  Charles Darwin passed through on the Beagle in 1835 and wrote in his diary: 'This little village is the stronghold of vice.' Not much evidence of that while we were there!