Take a hat

Northland Walking up to St Pauls We left the Fantail Inn and the lovely town of Russell behind us and sailed over the Opua Ferry to the holiday resort of Pahia. We visited 12 years ago and it seemed little changed. We pushed on north, taking a detour through Kerikeri for a look see. It’s the go-to shopping destination if you live in Russell, lots of fruit growing in the area. An easy run to Coopers Beach and a new Motel the San Marino. It was a bit tired but the location on the fabulous beach was perfect. We settled on the second room we were shown and headed out on a walk, the first of many on this beautiful stretch of sand.    It was backed by broccoli trees that gave excellent shade. It was super in the water although not as warm as expected. We found the Beach Box on our first walk, it served excellent coffee and good cakes as well. TW discovered Ginger and Karakara tea, she’s hooked! Lots of options locally for outings. Whangeroa was excellent, nice coffee at the Fishing Club. We

  Getting There and Heading North Leaving Home in the darkness with rain falling was not the greatest start to our expedition. Things got much worse when we hit the stationary traffic on the M3. Luckily we had left home early so we were not too stressed. The plan was for me to drop TW at Terminal 3 and then take the shuttle from the car depot. There was no time for that. Check-in was easy and friendly. We headed for the Virgin lounge and a decent veggie breakfast. A comfortable flight followed on a Virgin A350. We landed at LAX on time and immigration went surprisingly smoothly apart from my confusion when trying too get my paws onto the fingerprint scanner in the correct order. The next challenge, how to get to Santa Monica? We wanted to go Uber but had no Internet access. Anyway, we took the Green Shuttle to the pick up where we managed to logon and order up a taxi. It arrived in a couple of minutes. Great service and we were at Santa Monica in about 30 minutes. We were booked into t