It poured all night and the wind started up in the morning. In probably a very wise move, Regan took the bus to work instead of riding his bike. I worked on computer projects for the day.

Regan's parents were in the area so he had made dinner reservations at an Indian restaurant downtown. We arrived a few minutes early so we walked down the street to get a bottle of wine. Apparently it's common to bring your own wine to many of the restaurants here. His parents were already seated when we arrived. The waiter brought us some wine glasses and opened the bottle. Then aside from taking our order, we never saw him again. They didn't even bring us a check; Regan had to go up and get it. That seems to be the theme here in terms of service, very European. I don't know yet if that's simply how they like it here or if they consider it poor service as well.

The rain seemed to taper off during the night and by morning the sun was out again. In the evening, we drove to Te Kopahou Reserve. Remember the walk we did a while back... along the cute houses to the dolphin/shark statue? Well, the reserve is just next to that. So this time, we drove past all that and parked near the statue so we could have enough time to walk in the reserve for a bit.

The sun was already beginning to dip behind the hills so it was a bit chilly. This used to be an old mining area, so some of the hillsides were still looking a bit torn up in spite of the revegetation process. Vast numbers of seagulls circled in the sky above us, sqwaking and calling.

We headed over to the tide pools and began exploring. At first it looked like just a few snail shells, but very quickly you could start to identify all sorts of starfish, anemones, fish, crabs, etc.

This is the first time I think I've seen "Seals" listed as a known hazard.

The tide pools

The rocks were quite sharp and took some careful negotiation...

... unless you were a Kiwi and took a different path.

A hermit crab

This tiny fish is called a cockabully (possibly a corruption of the Maori word kokapuru, for "small fish").

A starfish and another small fish (that was kind enough to sit still for a moment - normally they darted frantically about the whole time)

A paua (or abalone) shell

This slimy black thing is a Beadlet Anemone. Regan told me how if you squeeze them, they squirt out water... which he promptly demonstrated! Ick!

This starfish was moving quite quickly... relatively.

These small blue fish were trapped in a very tiny pool, probably much to their frantic dismay.

This Cushion Star got caught above the water level when the tide pulled out.

A sea anemone

The barnacle is apparently related to crabs and lobsters. I don't think I've ever seen one open enough to tell.

A wide variety of (disgusting-looking) seaweed

The light was fading so we decided to walk back to the car. We made a quick stop at another turnout to catch some pretty sunset colors.

Leaving the tide pools

You look absolutely radiant! A seagull glows from the evening light... not its sparkling personality.

We swung by a fish-n-chips place and I got a veggie burger (basically a potato fritter with an egg - tasted good) and Regan got some shark-n-shavings (battered shark with fries).

If you note the piece of buttered bread to the left in front of Regan... he used this to make a french fry sandwich!