We vacated our lovely free accommodation in Mangawhai Heads and continued our road trip north. We stopped at a beach for a sand castle competition. We all had 5 minutes to create our works of art for Mike to judge.

Here are the photos and the results:

A Sand Jandal – by Lynda

Sand and Stuff Castle – by Jo

A Paua Shell – by Chrissie

Lynda won first prize for originality, Jo won first prize for prettiness and Chrissie won first prize for water draining efficiency (or something like that!)

We left our works of art behind and headed off down a rugged dirt track to visit a cave.

We then stopped and looked at a big waterfall

Then we headed off to find some beachside accommodation and found a gorgeous spot right on the beach. It looked a little like rain so we decided to take a cabin. Once checked in a lot of screaming happened as it was full of spiders! We got some spray and sprayed the hell out of it but had a rather restless night worrying about spiders.

Unfortunately no one thought to take photos of the bay.