We woke up this morning, made ourselves a coffee, and sat on the deck in shorts and t-shirts looking out at the ocean. Morning puzzles, reading, listening to the news reports about the snowstorms in Ontario, and relaxing. “Just how relaxing was it?” you ask? What? You didn’t ask? Too bad, I’m telling you anyway. My Garmin watch tracks my ”body battery” as it re-charges while I sleep, and then decreases over the day. By noon today, my body battery was higher than it had been when I woke up. That’s how relaxing!

We are now entering the portion of our trip where the focus will be walking along the beach. With the exception of Taupo, which will be on a lake, the rest of our trip will be near beaches. After lunch, we took a short drive to the Whanganui beach. Every New Zealand beach is different, thought they all seem to be fabulous. Today was no exception.

We are on the west coast of the North Island, on the Tasman Sea. So we waved to Larry and Heather who are currently enjoying Australia. We’re confident they will wave back, but we couldn’t see them. It’s a big sea.

The Castlecliff beach has fine black sand and unlike most sand, it says soft even when it’s damp. As a result, your feet sink into the sand with every step. It’s sort of like walking through snow, except that walking through snow in your bare feet is never a good idea. See how deep Jan’s footprints are?

There were even had a number of convenient benches along the beach.

Our walk was relatively short – about a km each way – but the soft sand made it more tiring than you would expect, and by the end we were short on breath. Nothing to do with our level of fitness, I assure you. In spite of being tired, it was great to walk along the beach listening to the waves crash onto the shore.

Then it was back to the Little House on the Hill and a swim in the pool, followed by drinks on the deck.

We finished the day with dinner on the deck watching the sun set over the Tasman sea.

Tomorrow we head north to New Plymouth.