Bay of Islands Babble 1

I have just tried writing this blog twice and it has been deletd off the screen. I have fifteen minutes to try once more and then I have to go to work. I have no idea why it keeps happening but I am not going to give up and I am trying desperately not to get pissed off - but I must say, my heartrate has definately increased!
The weekedn already feels like long ago as I am going to a conference today on Maori youth so because it was a long weekend, I only had Tuesday and Wednesday to get the weeks worth of work done so I have been c-r-a-z-y-b-u-s-y but totally fine as well.
Anyways, we left early Friday and went out for breakfast which is a real treat. We took it pretty cruisily on the way to Russell (I'll just note here that we did 1200kms between Friday and Monday incase I forget to write it later). We had lots of stops on the way for Dave to refuel on caffeine and for me to try not to be tempted by the many muffins in the many cafes at the many stops we made. We stopped at a place called Waipu Cove which is a pretty beach where we went for a walk and watched the surfers try to catch baby waves. We got back to the car and it was my turn to drive and I realised my glasses were no longer hanging off the front of my dress and I had dropped them somewhere during our walk. Luckily an old, grey hairred surfer heard the commotion and said he had seen some glasses lying on the grass nbot far from the car. Lucky! We stopped next at a place called Kaitia (I think it was Kaitia - we definately stopped at somehwere called Kaitia over the weekend but I'm not sure if it was on Friday or not...). Anyway, Kaitia is the town we named "The town where everything looks closed but is open". It was like a ghost town to drive through but once we parked and walked around, as we got to the front door of a few places, we realised they were open despite the lack of lighting and visibility from the street! Very bizarre. We got to Paihia and wandered around for a while - I got a pineapple fritter and we just got a feel for the place. then we got a ferry across to Russell and followed a winding road up a hill for 2kms to come out at the top and see the Bay spread open before us, displaying its beauty like a proud mother. It was breathtakiong. We were staying a bit out of Russell so we were still not yet in the township - we explored that on Saturday. We found our beachfront chalet with a beautiful view from the balcony fomr which many grogeous sunsets were viewed over the weekend. We were pretty tired so I made a steak salad for dinner and we relaxed and had an early night. I sewed a patch I cut off a kids top I got in an op shop a few weekes before - onto anothe top I got in the same op shop a few weeks before. The patch had military style writing on it with pilot related vocabulary on it so now I feel like a true pilot's grl. I am not going to spell check this cos I don't have time so please excuse the typos!
Saturday we explored Russell and enjoyed (well, I enjoyed) going to the local craft market in a hall (very old biddyish products) and we looked in some gift shops which we assumed were all locally made stock. We bought a metal kiwi bird to stand in the garden for Dave's mum for her birthday and then realised it was made in Africa! Anyways....back to the chalet for lunch - I made yummy asparagus and tomato salsa bruschettas. Then we went down to the wharf to board the Excitor - a 40 knot powerboat racer with twin 800horsepower engines which created a big rooster tail behind us as we zoomd around. We went out to the famous Hole In the Rock but couldn't go through it cos of the swell and floated into a cave on one of the islands and then came out and noticed some dolphins playing. Our skipper was quick to tell us that dolphins are always doing one of 3 things - playing (with boats etc), eating or fucking - and they definately weren't playing with boats and didn't seem to be eating so we figured they were in the seduction phase. Also, I learnt that dolphins are the onnly creature other than humans that have sex for pleasure! I will have to sign off now and continue the story when I get home from work as I have only half an hour to get out the door now! Damn computer - I had finished the whole story once and halfway twice and now I have run outta time....Love to you all