Patetonga

Leaving Whangerei, we headed south, making it about a third of the way down the North Island, to a farm/airbnb, where Gwen and Simon fell in love with their first sheep. They named it named Facey (for his dark face). Facey's mother had twins, and rejected one. Which left our airbnb owners stuck bottle feeding her. Facey, our hosts Dot and Malcolm explained, became both very affectionate and very demanding.

 The kids were enthralled.

This part of the country was much more pastoral - soft rolling hills, no rugged mountains, no rocky coasts. But lots and lots of sheep farms! With the occasional cow.

And to our surprise - eels! Taming and feeding the eels in your pond turns out to be quite common. This was our first experience with it, but we kept seeing it over and over again, and the kids became quite adept at offering eels a bit of liver on a stick.