What A Way To Start The Day...

What a way to start a day.
The Flying Tortoise is at Matai Bay on The Karikari Peninsula in New Zealand's Far North.
This was the stunning sunrise that presented itself as I woke the other morning.
I thought the day couldn't get much better.
But it did...

Aged 84, Housebuser Bruce Embraces The Latest Technology To Enhance His Gypsy Lifestyle...

My friend Bruce has had five stays in hospital this year and has many reasons to be thankful for the technology that helps keep him alive.
But his liking of technology doesn't end there. His children gave him a laptop when he was a youngster four years ago and since then when he hasn't been freedom camping and kite fishing in New Zealand's Far North, he's been enjoying the challenges of the internet.
This Octogenarian has his latest smartphone seamlessly talking with his laptop and his GPS device that tells him how to get from here to there and which way the wind will be blowing when he gets there.
Young Bruce seems to be leaving many
of his peers for dead...

Wildboy Brando Yelavich Is A Happy Man With Only About 500 Kilometers Left To Walk On His Coastline Circumnavigation Of New Zealand...

I met up with Brando again yesterday at Uretiti Beach, just about five hundred kilometers short of Cape Reinga in New Zealand's Far North.
He's a happy man having already  raised more than twenty two thousand dollars for Ronald McDonald House and walked around eight thousand kilometers on his epic journey.
But he's worried what he's going to do
when he gets to his goal.
I might have to keep walking he said.
I just love it...

A Magical Sunrise To Wake To...

Yesterday was one of those magical mornings at Tokerau Beach in New Zealand's Far North.
You know, the sort of morning you're so relieved you didn't wake ten minutes later.
It would've been another day in paradise but you might've had the feeling that you missed something but didn't know what...

Carol Came Home For Christmas...

In May of the year that just was,
Carol became the first Mako Shark in New Zealand waters to be tracked using
a Satellite Spot Tag.
Scientists watched as she set off for the Pacific Islands, got halfway there only to change her mind as females are often want to do, and come back for a two month stay at New Zealand's famous Ninety Mile Beach in the Far North.
She left again, arriving at Fiji in September, and then, after seven months and more than eleven thousand kilometres, Carol had obviously decided she wanted to be home for Christmas because she was once again located just a few kilometers from where she was tagged.
A fishy tale of the one that got away.
And came back...

The Flying Tortoise Has Been In New Zealand's Far North Again...

As many of you know, Tokerau Beach on the Karikari Peninsular in New Zealand's Far North is one of my favouritist of places to freedom camp and these images will remind you why.
I've been here for a couple of weeks trying to catch some fish.
But that's another story...

Beautiful Evening Light...

The last of the days sunlight was making it's magic at Tokerau Beach yesterday evening.
The near end of another beautiful day
in New Zealand's Far North.
A person has to be somewhere...

Catch Of The Day...

Relatively new to motorhoming and freedom camping but well experienced in life, Lyndsay and Bruce arrived at this remote beach in New Zealand's Far North and as TFT was the only other vehicle here, asked me if it was safe.
I told them the natives were friendly and they decided to stay.
We chatted a while and the irony of these two worrying about their safety here amused me.
They had spent seven years in Afghanistan on Aid missions.
In the midst of war zones.
On a number of occasions they had both been held at gunpoint by the Taliban and the Mujahaden.
They had had their vehicles seized and had been terrified captives more than once.
They had ducked bullets on the streets of Kabul.
The concern for their safety here didn't last long and they were rewarded for their bravery by catching a number of good sized Snapper and this superb Kingfish.
Guess what I had for dinner...