Wetnose was waiting for us in Opua, flying their Gibraltar homeport flag. They arrived the day before, and seemed remarkably refreshed by their outing from Minerva and were ready to press further south.

 

After being checked in by the NZ authorities, we anchored behind a well treed islet…

…next to some some Irish countryside…

 

… among some brightly painted boats.

Some were more traditional.

Some were brighter than others (any others, anywhere).

Then we took a long nap.  But since the uniformed lads with NZ Quarantine had trashed a number of our important provisions it wasn’t long before we ambled off to town down a 4 km-long path along the shoreline.

The flora of this place is a bizarre mix of temperate, tropical and Mediterranean plants. K was sure he heard a pterodactyl among the massive ferns.

Then we stumbled on a tree full of delicious eskadenia that K knew from his youth.

They have weird seeds and taste like a lemony pear.

 

The unripe ones are more than a little lemony.

K dug deep into his early memories as an orchard thief and soon we had pockets full of fruit and green almonds.   Any country with trailside fruit free for the picking is alright with us.

After a long hike on sore seafeet we arrived at a supermarket where we were overwhelmed by the selection.  The skinny coconut-scraping island dogs we’ve met over the past few months would be lining up to apply for NZ citizenship if they saw this:

K reflexively lingered in front of the corned beef and then realized he might have better dining with a fresh pack of Bow Wow, although the Champ looks like it might have less gristle and hide. Platinum definitely has the ring of quality with less coagulated fat and more good stringy meat bits. Hound Dog can’t be good….