Chicken Sliver Sandwiches

I have written a blog entry which covered our final day in Auckland and first day on the road with The Rhino, but we haven't been anywhere with Internet for a few days now and it's saved on my computer.  I'll post it the next time I get the opportunity, but for now I want to update from the iPad while we are on our 6 hour drive to Coromandel peninsula from the Puketi Forest.  I'll start where I ended on my "missing entry".  I think I ended with waking up in a tent on the beach...  So we left the Uretiti camp ground and headed to the waipu caves. The grounds keeper at our site said they weren't worth seeing, but when you've never seen any cave it is bound to please.  We went far enough in that we lost the light of the entrance and relied solely on flashlights.      As frightening as it was, when we saw the thousands of glow worms all over the ceiling it put us at ease.  They look like green stars.  I am looking forward to more cave adventures on the black water rafting trip early next week in Waitomo. Next we went to Whangarei falls, which we read were not NZs most magnificent but the most photographed.  They were beautiful nonetheless.  After the falls we drove up to Pahia on the Bay of Islands to have a pint on the bay.  (a pint is a draft beer, but they also have cider on almost all taps, which I love) .  We decided to head to the campsite before sundown, but didn't make it until dark due to a combination of bad google maps and unfamiliarity with the area.  Regardless, we woke up in the beautiful Puketi forest, had a bite, and hopped in The Rhino.  So a few random thoughts about the trip thus far:  - small REI quarter dome tent rocks.  Very cozy.  - my Sierra designs sleeping bag (rated around 35 degrees) is a liitle bit insufficient for the night temperatures in the high 30s-low 40s, even with the sleeping pad and silk liner and silk long undies.  -silk long undies rock!  - apparently giving hundreds of dollars for a car deposit does not warrant a receipt in NZ, and is supposedly "an American thing"  - my very small, very quiet complaint would have to be about the food... I knew this would be my biggest qualm, but it is very different than America, and I find myself eating a lot of sausage and peanut butter, neither of which I'm too keen of.   Meat, cheese, and ketchup all taste very different (we did find some Heinz though!). I know it will get better and I will adjust but for now my hunger seems insatiable. I know there are a lack of pictures, but I will get them all up on flickr as soon as we get some wifi.   Cheers!