Kia Ora New Zealand! Auckland and Northland

Day 88 - 2nd March

We landed in Auckland at 4:00am after a fairly pleasant flight with LAN Chile. Unfortunately we had to wait until 8:30 to call our campervan company to pick us up so we hung around the airport reading our books and drinking coffee. Once the office had opened we went to Wendekreisen, our campervan hire company, and picked up the Toyota Hiace that would be our home for the next 4 or 5 weeks. The van, whom we have christened Wendy, is great and very spacious considering her size. We spent some time using the free wifi at the office to find a campsite near Auckland – we never bothered to research this part of the trip at all as it was so far in the future, and now we're here we have no idea what to do! We found a campsite on the beach on Auckland's North Shore, went to the supermarket to stock up on supplies (nearly had a heard attack and the change in price from South America) and settled into our new home. The day was quite grey so we spent the rest of the day snoozing and had a well-deserved early night.

Jon and Wendy

Day 89 - 3rd March

We woke up after a great night's sleep in our cosy van to find that the weather had gone a little crazy. The wind was really strong and clouds raced across the sky, meaning that we had glorious sunshine one minute and heavy rain showers the next. This seemed like a good day to spend in the shops, galleries and museums of Auckland, so we caught a bus into town. We spent an hour or so wandering around the dock area, which was really nice and managed to balance itself somewhere between real working port and pretty marina with lots of beautiful boats and waterside restaurants nestled amongst fishing boats and ferries. We spent a bit of time walking around the centre of town, headed up to the Sky Tower, decided we weren't bothered enough about going up to pay the $28 fee and headed over to the Auckland Domain park area instead. The Domain is a large park with many pretty walking trails, a duck pond and wintergarden and the Auckland National Museum, which was our reason for going there. The museum is huge and houses a massive collection of artefacts from Maori and other Pacific Island cultures, including a huge war canoe and two full size carved houses. It also acts as the natural history museum and war museum combined and we spent about 4 hours inside exploring all the exhibits. The sections on the history of New Zealand, the NZ wars and the treaty of Waitangi were really interesting and informative, as were the sections on Maori culture and folklore, including their creation story and their version of the creation of the Islands. When we emerged from the museum the weather hadn't improved so we went to find a coffee and some wifi – which proved more challenging than we had imagined. Every corner of South America is covered with free wifi cafés but here we walked for ages without finding any, even in the centre of the largest city. Eventually we found a coffee house that would give us an hour of free wifi but it turned out to have an upload limit so I wasn't able to do all that I wanted. It seems that keeping up with the blog and photos, not to mention skyping friends and family may be a little challenging in New Zealand after all.

We headed back to our campsite and had a lovely evening in our little van, with the luxury of sofas and a reasonable kitchen. We made a delicious chicken rogan josh, our first curry in 3 months, and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine. The weather had finally improved and the sunset over the bay was beautiful.

Auckland Harbour

Maori carvings at the National Museum

Rangitoto Island from our campsite at Takapuna

Day 90 – 4th March

This morning dawned clear and beautiful and we decided to head out to explore the Hauraki Gulf, a series of Islands off the coast of Auckland. We drove to the nearby seaside town of Devonport, which was very pretty with great views of Auckland from across the harbour and many quaint Victorian buildings. Rangitoto is the newest island in the Hauraki Gulf, formed 600 years ago when the volcano beneath it erupted, creating a small volcanic island. The surface is still mostly covered with lava, with only a few walking tracks carved out. The most popular walk is to the summit the volcano from the wharf, but we decided to lose the crowds and headed off to the other side of the island, for a spot of lunch on Islington Bay. It was about an hour's walk and the bay was lovely and secluded, with only about 5 other people there. We had some sandwiches and went for a swim in the surprisingly warm waters. After drying off we walked up to the summit of the volcano and got there after the crowds had left. There were magnificent views all around, of the gulf and islands and over to Auckland. After soaking up the view we walked back down and caught the ferry back to Auckland. We had decided to head up to explore Northland for the next few days so we drove about an hour and a half north to Goat Island Marine Reserve, where we settled into another great campsite with beautiful views of the sea.

Lava on Rangitoto

Islington Bay

View from the summit

View from our campsite at Goat Island

Day 91 - 5th March

The weather was fantastic again today, and we began the day by renting a snorkel, flippers and a wetsuit and snorkelling at Goat Island Marine Reserve. The Reserve is the country’s first and has a large area of protected shore, with hoards of snapper, blue maomao and parore. We were hoping to see some stingrays too, but the tide was coming in in the channel where they normally live and visibility wasn't great. Still, it was a fantastic morning swimming amongst the fish. We got out of the water to dry off in the sun and managed to both get sunburnt in a very short space of time! After a quick lunch we continued our journey north to the Bay of Islands. The Department of Conservation (DOC) operates a large number of cheap campsites across the country, and we decided to stay at one just south of the Bay of Islands, at Whangaruru. The site was set in a beautifully isolated national park at the end of a long, empty road that wound through remote settlements and down a long headland on an isolated harbour. The camping sites were right on the beach and we had a lovely evening watching the sun set over the secluded bay, before being lulled to sleep by the gentle rushing of the waves near our van – bliss!

Goat Island

Whangaruru

Enjoying a cuppa at Whangaruru

Day 92 - 6th March

We woke up to another slightly breezy day in Whangaruru but the beautiful setting put us in good spirits for the day, unfortunately I hit my head on the van door as I was getting in and knocked myself to the ground. With a thumping headache and the makings of a good bruise it no longer seemed like the best day for kayaking or swimming with dolphins so instead we decided to drive to the town of Russell on a peninsula in the south of the Bay of Islands. The drive there took us through some spectacular scenery at the southern edge of the Bay, probably the prettiest part of the Bay in my opinion. Russell was the former capital of NZ and used to be an important port and whaling town. The town today is tiny but with a pretty harbour and some lovely old buildings. We spent some time wandering around and had delicious pies for lunch. Once again we failed to find anywhere with wifi but we did succeed in booking a dolphin trip for tomorrow. After leaving Russell we crossed the harbour to the mainland via the Okiato car ferry and drove to the small, uninteresting town of Kawakawa, which is famous for its public toilets, designed by the Austrian architect Hundertwasser – they were quite unusual but not enough to keep us in Kawakawa, so we drove on to Kawiti to see some caves. New Zealand is full of glow worm caves, the most famous of which are at Waitomo. There you can take any number of extortionately priced tours ranging from abseiling to black water rafting, all including a look at the glow worms. We had decided we'd rather spend our precious money on the dolphins and some activities at Rotorua so we headed instead for the lesser-known Kawiti caves, where admission with a guide is just $15 (£7.50). The guide was really informative and gave us lots of information about the caves and glow worms themselves. The caves were truly spectacular inside, with the ceilings crowded with the tiny lights of the glow worms, lighting the up like the night sky. After the caves we drove to the town of Paihia, the main town on the Bay of Islands and found a campsite with free wifi (hurrah!)

Kawiti caves

Me and Wendy on the car ferry

Jon at Russell

Day 93 - 7th March

This morning, thanks to the wonder of free wifi, we skyped our parents and sent all the necessary e-mails that were building up. After packing up our van we drove north of Paihia and visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. Waitangi at the National Museum in Auckland. We had about 45 minutes to spare so we drove to the nearby Haruru falls, a pretty waterfall with a beach opposite, that would be a lovely spot for a picnic on a sunny day. Our dolphin cruise left Paihia at 12:30 and by that time the weather had turned and it was raining and cloudy. The skipper of the boat informed us that out in the far reaches of the bay there were some quite rough seas and that was where they has seen the dolphins this morning and that if they were still there swimming would not be possible. Everyone on the boat decided to stay on board and give it a shot so we set off into the bay. The seas were a little rough but it was great fun skimming over them and being tossed around in our little boat, it definitely reminded us of home! After an hour or so we found a pod of bottlenose dolphins out in the open area of the bay. In total there were around 50, mostly adults but some babies and juveniles. They swam alongside the boat, jumping and playing right next to us, swimming underneath us and chasing our hands as they dangled in the water. Although it was raining we didn't care and we were able to hang right over the side of the boat so that our faces were only inches from the dolphins. Some of them seemed really curious and looked up at us with their dark eyes as if checking out who we were. It is definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life to have made prolonged eye contact with a dolphin! Unfortunately we weren't able to swim with them as there were juveniles in the group and conservation laws strictly prohibit interrupting a nursing group – it was a shame but you can't argue with that! Still the experience was magical, we were able to get much closer and spend much longer with the dolphins than either of us had imagined. We spent the next few hours cruising round the bay, looking at the beautiful islands and bays and learning about the area. At one point we all got very excited as we saw a group of dolphins in calm waters, but they turned out to be the same group as earlier and we had to move on and leave them undisturbed. We ended our trip back at Paihia soaking wet and very happy having had such a close encounter with such amazing animals. Maybe the chance will arise to swim with them another day. 

Dolphin near the boat

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The dolphin pod

We then drove across Northland to the west coast to our next destination, Trounson Kauri Park. On the way we passed through more spectacular scenery and stopped at a beautiful lookout point at Omapere, where Hokiangi Harbour meets a peninsula of towering sand dunes. Near Trounson we stopped off at Waipoua Forest to see Tane Mahuta, the tallest Kauri tree in New Zealand. At 51m tall and 13m round the trunk it was a truly massive tree and an awe inspiring sight. The whole of Northland and most of the North Island used to be covered in giant Kauri trees but, due to logging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, very few areas of Kauri forest remain. Most of them are now in protected reserves along this stretch of coast, known as the Kauri Coast. We drove to our campsite, nestled in Trounson Kauri Park, close to the giant trees and went to sleep to the sound of birds and insects all around.

Omapere

Jon with Tane Mahuta

Day 94 - 8th March

This morning we went for a walk around Trounson Kauri Park, which was full of the giant trees and felt like a very ancient forest. There were many other species of tree and plant, from tall palms to vines and creepers and the forest was full of the sounds of birds and insects. Northland is home to quite a few wild kiwi but we didn't see any in our travels as they are very shy and mostly come out at night. We also paid a visit to a local Kauri workshop in the small town of Kaihu, where we bought a souvenir – a hand-made Kauri cake slice! From here we drove south back to the Auckland region. We stopped in at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe but decided it was overpriced and could never compare to walking amongst the real things. Our campsite tonight was about 45 minutes drive west of Auckland at Muriwai Beach, a beautiful, chilled surfer's spot along the coast with a gannet colony on the rocks along the beach. We spent a happy hour or so watching the surfers on the beach and the gannets on the rocks, most of which had young who were exercising their wings. Jon had his first run of the trip along the beach – amazingly he had lasted 3 months without a single run but I feel I may have lost him to early morning or evening runs from now on!

Muriwai Beach

Muriwai Beach

Gannet colony

Kauri forest