It started raining again in the night as forecast by the NZ Met centre although the camp site owners said it would be fine. So we lay in our proper bed in a cabin listening to the rain and glad we did not have a wet tent to deal with.We decided to do a tour round the area and left after a latish breakfast and turned North to visit the Waipoua Forest which is the home of the oldest living tree called Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest). This Kauri tree has a girth of almost fourteen metres and stands with many other large Kauri trees in this tropical forest which reminded Noel of the forests in Malaysia with high rainfall and dense bush. If you walked ten metres into this forest and turned around several times you would never find your way out except by a slight chance or GPS system.
After leaving the forest we continued north until we came to the estuary and along one side there were small villages but on the other side high sand hills partly covered in grass and small tress and the two sides of the estuary had very different appearances. It was still pouring with rain and very misty and so no point in taking photos.
Just before we reached the next town we found a lone pig wandering along the highway, we are not sure if it is a wild animal or not and will ask our friends here. It seemed quite at home on the main road.
We arrived in the town of Kaikohe where the heavens opened just as we reached a small café for lunch. Jennifer had the ‘Lamb’s Fry’ which is Lamb’s liver on mashed potato which she devoured happily.
We continued our journey south driving through the hills, mountains and fields full of cows and sheep.
We spotted many Australasian Harriers, a hawk, which likes to eat road kill rather than waste time catching his food. One bird hung on to his lunch in the middle of the road as cars passed him at 30 kms per hour only inches from where he was standing. It was a case of ‘I am protected by law’ so you drive around me please but many birds are killed this way as they refuse to leave the prey in the road.
We arrived in Dargaville, where Noel found an internet shop and caught up on emails etc. We did some shopping and then headed back to the site after calling Brian and Sheila to say we would arrive one day early due to bad weather. There is not much point in sightseeing when it’s raining so hard you cannot see anything.
We read in the TV lounge/kitchen area which was quite comfortable.
