Ohope Beach at sunrise, we had the beach to ourselves, trying to beat the sea gulls and oyster catchers to the clams so we could have them for our dinner!
We had a wonderful time and met so many nice people, who made us feel at home. I felt like I was still in Montana, except for the ocean and lack of mosquitos, of course!!
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 John, Annelies and Charlotte at their neighbors stud in Auckland, which we visited after being picked up from the airport. |
 Been There Done That-retired race horse 17 hands |
 Cliff flying his kite just off Te Kouma Bay beach, on the Coromandel Penninsula. We stayed at the Matthew's Bed and Breakfast, with a view of the bay. |
 Mussel harvesting boats in the Te Kouma Bay. We found lots of sand dollars too! |
 Photos taken from car with Bud( aka; Mario Andretti) driving! |
 Native forest seen from Driving Creek train(in background) overlooking Hauraki Gulf; in spite of being the tropics, there were no mosquitos!!!!! |
 On the way over the Coromandel Penninsula to Hot Water Beach. |
 Bud's favorite-heading down a winding mountain road! |
 Charlotte clamming on Hot Water Beach at sunset. |
 Cliff boogie boarding on hot water beach. |
 Beautiful Cathedral Cove. |
 An opening between two beaches. |
 View of Ohope Beach, where we spent the majority of our vacation. |
 Sue enjoying the sand beach and fun waves. |
 Enjoying a snorkling cove that we hiked to. |
 Cliff snorkling. |
 Cliff, Bud, and Charlotte clam hunting in the morning on Ohope Beach. |
 Ohiwa Bay, where we fished. |
 Thanks to Ron and Helen, our neighbors at the camp ground, we had a fun day fishing on their boat, in spite of our tiny success! |
 Cliff with his red snapper. |
 On our way to the airport(so sad!), we briefly perked up at the sign-so close, yet so far away!!! |
 An old volcano we passed-anyone know the name?!. |
 Our stop in Cambridge,horse country of the north island, also has beautiful farms-lots of kiwi fruit! |
 Two pacers schooling at the track. Cambridge has the largest thoroughbred training center-700-800 horses annually, with two grass tracks, three dirt tracks and one steeple chase track. Unfortunately all were racing in other towns, when we were there!. |