Nature | Fishing For Fashion

Our family decided to go on a day trip today seeing that it is a public holiday. Matapouri and Tutukaka are 2.5 hours north of Auckland, about 30 minutes from Whangarei and is a slice of heaven within New Zealand which is already pretty heavenly as most already think.

Quite a different type of beach compared to ones we normally go (ie: Coromandel) where there are decent sized waves. These east coast bays up north are famous for its natural and serene beauty. One of these bays were actually named the best beach in New Zealand last year. The water was pristine and not too cold suprisingly (on a gorgeous sunny day).

We even managed to go for a few snorkels out around the bay, but not much to see unfortunately. There were a school of cuttle fish perched on top of some seaweed but apart from that not really comparable to the sea life I’ve seen in Fiji.

One of the main attractions are the mermaid pools which you can’t access by car. We hiked up this huge steep hill and down another steep hill to get there – no clear cut paths or anything. But worth the hike. Unfortunately we didn’t take our snorkeling gear with us across the hill but the scenery was breathtaking.

Next time I go back up there, I’ll probably stay at least for a night or 2 so I can do day trips out to the Poor Knights Island (top 10 diving sites in the world – fingers crossed the snorkeling can’t be too bad / i should have my PADI diving license by then).

Enjoy the pictures!

❤ Michelle

P.S if you want to keep track of my travels, I do have a travel blog which I started a while back and has some travel content – check it out – View From a Fish Bowl