Northland Continued

Hey folks!
So we are back in Poomerston North for a night and coincidentally have internet access so here goes! The rest of Northland was absolutely fantastic! The weather was great, and I have actually transitioned into the life of a gypsy living out of their van. I only have the occasional freak-out now.
Ok, so where did I leave off... Oh yeah, we headed from the Bay of Islands to the Karikari peninsula. This was one of our favourite places because the beaches were so pristine and there wasn't hardly anyone there.

We kept heading north for Cape Reinga. On the west coast there is 90 mile beach, and it is actually a highway as well as a beach, but we didn't drive on it. We didn't want Esther to be swept away to sea when the tides came in :) 

Cape Reinga was a magical place. You could see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meeting and creating tumultous water out into the ocean. The Maori believe that this is where the departed souls of the dead leap from and are carried away to Hawaiki (their ancestral homeland).

We stayed at Tapotupotu Bay that night and enjoyed the scenery. The next morning it was Jared's birthday, so I got up before him for the first time this trip and made him breakfast :) On the way south we headed to the Te Paki Sand Dunes, where you can go sand-boarding. Well we thought we would ride down the dunes in our black plastic bins. This did not work, we just sunk into the sand :) In the end it was just as well because the sand was so hot you couldn't really climb them any way. From there we made it to Maitai Bay, which is on the Karikari peninsula. We liked it so much we decided to go back.

We stayed there for a couple of days and then headed further south. We drove through the Waipoua Forest on our way. Here we stopped to see the Kauri giants. These are some immense trees. The first one we saw was Tane Mahuta- "The Lord of the Forest." This tree is 50 m tall and has a trunk girth of 16 m.

We then took a few more walks to see more of the Kauri trees. There are a ton of them in this forest because they were protected. Lots of Kauri trees went for timber, though and hence why most of the Kauri forests have been destroyed. 

We stayed in Dargaville for the night and in the morning headed south. Made it through Auckland uneventfully so that was good. We stopped at a road sign that said "The Three Sisters", so obviously I wanted to stop! It turned out to be this really cool place on the coast with a bunch of stone pillars, sea arches and rock formations right on the coast. It was very cool. And we were lucky because it was low tide when we drove by and that is the only time you can see it. 

The game plan now is to drive south to Wellington, take the ferry across and start exploring the South Island.   On our way down we are staying with some friends and catching up.

See you later