After a very good night we woke early to a lot of loud music from a guy cleaning his car in the driveway of a house across the road. I am glad he is not my neighbour.
We had breakfast which we had brought with us in the chilly bin, cleared up and set off early.
We stopped for another bag of ice for the chilly bin and then went up to the Pioneer Museum in Dargaville.
I was not expecting much as the town is so grim but the museum is really good and we could have spent longer there.
We stopped at the tourist information office and got a map of where to stop and see all the really big kauri trees. The lady in the office tried to book us onto the coach trip for Saturday to go to the Cape but it was fully booked. It is not a big problem as we can drive up but the bus comes back along Ninety Mile Beach which is supposed to be a lot of fun.
We set off up what is called the Kauri Coast and and our first stop was to see the Kai iwi (food for the people) Lakes. There are three fresh water lakes which are very pretty with lots of water sports and is a typical Kiwi holiday resort if you like camping but no coffee shops!!
Back on the road we unfortunately got stuck behind three camper vans and on this road it is difficult enough to pass one let alone three who are travelling in convoy so it was pretty slow going. Eventually, the back one pulled over to let the stream of cars go and then the other two did the same.
By this time we were actually driving through the forest which is very thick and the roads wind around mile after mile.
We drove up to a lookout and you could see for miles and miles across the forests which are now mainly pine but there are lots of new Kauri trees being planted in this area. We met a couple of young girls in a mini camper van and we saw they over the next few days at a lot of the places we went to - tourist trail!! We drove into the Waipoua Forest information centre and had a coffee which was not very good AND the three camper vans were already there and must have passed us when we went to the lookout.
We could see they were getting ready to leave so we quickly drank our coffee and got back on the road!
Our next stop was for the kauri walks. We parked the car and it is one of the few car parks you have to pay for. Apparently they have had a lot of theft from cars so they now have a security man there and you pay $2 which is fine by us.
The walk was lovely and there were various paths to take to see the different trees. We saw the Four Sisters which is four trunks from one root and is very big. We then saw the second largest kauri tree in NZ with a girth of 16.7 mtrs. It was big but I was not as impressed as I was when I saw the kauri trees in the Coromandel as they looked bigger. However, you cannot get the feel with pictures and I am sure when I look at the photos they will not look so impressive.
We got back to the car and just as we were leaving the camper vans were just coming in, they had obviously stopped for lunch.
Our next stop was to see the tallest kauri tree (the other one was the fattest!). I sat chatting to a couple from the UK who had been travelling around for five weeks and she said she would be sorry to go home, a bit like us really. She said we were very lucky to live here and she is right.
We continued up the coast to a beautiful harbour which |I had see from the plane when we flew to Norfolk Island. It was really lovely with huge sand dunes across the other side. We had a walk to the end to look out across the huge harbour and the water is so blue.
We continued on down to Rawene where you catch the car ferry. We were by this time very hungry as it was 3.00 and we had not seen one place to stop. The lady at the tourist information office back in Dargaville had told me about the Boat Shed and said it was very good so we made for there and had a lovely lunch and a glass of wine sitting out on the deck over the water. We could see the ferry coming across so made a move to get in the queue only to find the camper vans had got there before us along with another few cars and we were not sure we would get on!!!
Fortunately, the ferry is bigger than it looks and we all got on although we were at the back which was fine as I could get out and have a walk around.
We then had a longish drive with nothing to stop at until we reached Ahipara which is the start of Ninety Mile Beach. There were lots of cars on the beach some with trailers for boats that were obviously out fishing but lots of people like to drive along the beach although you do have to be careful of the tides which had had more than a few cars so we were told.
We did spend a few minutes watching a people carrier trying to get off the beach. He kept driving back to the hard stuff and then driving really fast to try and get over the soft sand but he just kept getting stuck so people would come and push him out ready for another go. We gave up after three attempts so not sure how long it took him to get off.
We drove into Kaitai and found our motel with a very friendly owner and a nice room. I had brought a lasagne with us which was frozen and with the ice in the chilly bin it was fine so no problems with dinner tonight and we had a big TV!!
WEATHER
Sunny 23 degrees
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