Monday 6th December.
Today we headed south through Thames and then turned west cutting down to Ngatea to visit the water gardens. These are run by people with a sense of humour as the gardens are littered with amusing signs and sights. The gardens were well worth the visit and we were escorted round by a gaggle of very friendly birds some samples which are shown below.
These were friendly enough to be fed by hand, though the middle one above had a rather sharp beak and when the food had gone....
The gardens also include Arthur’s Canny Museum, a collection of circa 30 years worth of collected drinks cans!
From here we followed the coast of the Firth of Thames through Miranda and Wharekawa to Kawaka Bay where we took a diversion to Raukura Point. Here we paddled in the sea (to mid-thigh level) before having lunch overlooking Ponui Island and an empty sandy beach.
It was then through a series of lanes to bring us close to Auckland where we joined the motorway to avoid the city centre (we’ll be seeing that later). This was incredibly busy and was just like driving in the UK! It did accelerate our journey back into the countryside and we were soon on to route 16 and onto Helensville via a short break to pick up fresh strawberries from a roadside strawberry packing house where they were packing strawberries by hand (they tasted delicious!).
North of Auckland the topography changes yet again and is of a softer, more rolling nature. We felt for a cycle tourist who was pushing his bike up one very long climb (simply ran out of gears or fitness!) and then, after we had stopped for a cuppa, we passed him again doing the same up another very long hill.
From these hills we had wonderful views of Kaipara Harbour and South Head as we twisted our way up and down through a series of ‘scenic reserves’.
Having been heading due north through Kakanui, past Mount Auckland and through Kaiwaka, we then turned due west at Bryderwyn to Paparoa where we stopped for the evening.
At this campsite we were one of two campervans. The other one was occupied by a French couple who claimed to speak very little English. We exchanged pleasantries utilising our very rusty French and their English. In the morning we got chatting to the French couple and between us got along fine with the usual ‘Franglais’. We had the same plans for the first part of our journey and duly met at the first two destinations of the day.
First stop was the Kauri Museum at Matakohe which we wandered around with our French companions. This museum gives a good history of how Kauri were harvested and processed with samples of Kauri wood millions of years old which has been found effectively fossilized beneath the ground. It also has a ‘Gum Room’ showing how gum was collected from trees (now banned) and how it was mined. There are also some wonderful examples of gum carvings, as well as some less than wonderful ones! There are some very large examples of slabs cut from single trees including one 22.5m long and another 6m wide. The display also included a plethora of Kauri furniture, a selection of the machinery used to convert trees to manageable planks and some interesting examples of natural grain patterns one of which is shown below.
It was then 1.5hrs drive through Dargaville and along highway 12 to the Kaihu Forest and then the Waipoua Forest. Today, unusually, it rained! Some of the showers were very heavy (there had been some overnight too) and at times we were high enough to be driving in cloud with the road reaching circa 500m.
The Waipoua Forest is home of the largest Kauri in New Zealand, so we visited Tane Mohula which is truly huge! It has a girth of 13.77m and a height of 51.5m.
On our departure from here we bade farewell to our French friends as they were heading for the Bay of Islands while we hoped to catch a small ferry to enable us to head north towards Ninety Mile Beach.
We continued following the coast road to Omapere where we came over the top of Pakanae Hill to emerge from rain forest and be faced with golden beaches bathed in sunshine on the opposite side of Hokianga Harbour.
We followed the road north east before taking the minor road to Rawene. As we joined this road we did pass a sign stating “Rangiora via ferry – suitable for all vehicles”, so it looked ok. When we got to Rawene there was indeed a ferry waiting for us; it had a capacity for about 15 cars and we drove straight on. The crossing was 15 minutes and saved us about 80 or 90km driving had the ferry no longer been operating!
From the ferry we entered an area that is known as very Maori oriented and which is apparently ‘anti-white’. We found no evidence of this but did not look too hard!
We headed north, then west and then north again passing through the lightly populated towns of Orawau, Broadwood, Herekino and Manukau before reaching the southern extreme of 90 Mile Beach at Ahipara.
Here we booked into a campsite before walking to the beach; we also booked a tour for tomorrow which would include a drive along this renowned stretch of coastline.
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