Lots of mosaic art

It was another big driving day for us today as we drove the 6 hour journey up to Russell. When we visited Northland last time it was during a 5 day storm. We managed to get up to Cape Reinga and avoid the rain while up there but as we headed south again we entered back into the storm. The weather for Russell then was predicted as 4 more days of rain so we just decided to skip it and come back in summer. You do forget how far away everything is when you plan these things though and it definitely makes you appreciate how close everything is to each other in the UK. We had a bit of a lie in today and with still sore legs began today's drive. We successfully navigated Auckland's highways and carried on highway 1 northwards. After a few hours we needed a break so we stopped at a cute cafe that was attached to an art gallery. I was pretty excited to discover the exhibition was for local artists and everything was under $500. Unfortunately though there was no pieces that I was really drawn to, not even the mosiaced Daleks. We sat outside and I drank my first ever salted caramel flavoured latte and just enjoyed being stationary for a brief half an hour. I'd messaged Bruce about our plans knowing they spent a holiday in Russell and he said we needed to visit some public toilets in Kawakawa. Bit of a random request but we decided we had to check them out. It was further north than we realised but we soon arrived at the small town. There in the centre was the toilets, a block that had a tree growing up through the roof and was covered in tiled mosaic patterns and glass bottles. It was a rather funky interesting design but I quite liked it. After visiting the supermarket here to grab some bits for tea we carried on North. There's a ferry you can take to Russell or you can opt for the road option. On Google the road seemed to only take an extra 20 minute so we chose that way to save money on the ferry. It was a long stretch of gravel narrow road with so many bends that you just had to hope there wasn't another car coming in the other direction. We made it eventually to Russell though and after checking into our cabin we went to explore the town. We've booked onto a sailing tour for tomorrow around the Bay of Islands so we found where we need to meet for that and visited some of the shops. Everything was beginning to close for the day but we enjoyed walking around. It has a very French feel to the buildings and it's definitely a cute little town. Huge trees with purple flowers were in bloom which added to the astectic of the place. We spent way too much money on the strongest, sweetest hot chocolate we've ever had from a chocolate specialist shop and sat overlooking the water trying to drink it. After a simple beans on toast meal for tea we got all our stuff ready for our tour tomorrow. After two days of driving it's nice to know we will be doing something different tomorrow and don't have to take the car anywhere.Read more