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Published: September 30th 2009
Friendly calves
Mahoe Cheese FactoryMonday, September 28th
We woke to a gray morning poring with rain. For breakfast we made banana pancakes, then piled into the 7-seater Smit mobile and drove into town to visit the iSite. We needed to get info on what to do in the area when the weather's bad. We started of with a Cheese Factory. The directions were bad so we ended up driving up and down trying to find it. Finally Mel found a map that showed the location of the factory, but when we arrived we found the shop unattended. We took a peak through the windows but couldn't tour the factory. Nicol finally got the attention of the proprietors and we bought some cheese. On the way out to the car, Keira spotted a pen with a bunch of calves that needed petting and we all got licked and slobbered by the claves. A little wet and grossed out we drove in the direction of Kerikeri.
En-route we stopped to buy some home-made fudge, visited a chocolate factory (too expensive to buy anything) and a Kauri wood store (waaaay too expensive to buy anything). When we arrived in Kerikeri we grabbed Subway for lunch, visited the
library to use their toilets, then drove to the Stone House and Kerikeri Mission house. After a few pictures we drove to Kaleidoscope world were we spent a long time chatting to Andrew, the creator, and enjoyed his fascinating creations. There were a couple of horses, a cat, some chickens and peacocks wandering about, but Keira enjoyed the peacocks most.
We were good and tired by this time so we drove back to Paihia, got more supplies, then went to our camp spot. The weather had changed for the better so Keira had a swim in the pool while the adults enjoyed the sunshine. Daylight Savings Time is messing with our heads. At 6pm the sun was nowhere near setting yet. After dinner we had more cheese and wine and a good chat, then turned in for the night.
Today's highlights:
1. Making the best of a pretty gray day.
Impressions of NZ:
Paihia and Kerikeri are great little towns. The area is full of fun things to do, come rain or shine. Tuesday, September 29th
We said goodbye to Paihia and drove south out of town. This was as far north as we were going
Mission Station
Stone Store 1835 to travel on this part of our trip. Our first stop was the Hundertwasser Toilets, located in Kawakawa. We had no idea what to expect and ended up driving up and down trying to spot it. After asking directions we found it, and true to its name, it was toilets, be it very creative toilets. Hardly the highlight of our trip, but it
was the most interesting public toilets we'd ever seen. We took a few pictures and went on our way.
Our next stop was the Kawiti Glow Worm Caves. There's only one guide so we had to wait for her to return from her previous tour. A Fantail (little bird) entertained is by dancing and displaying its long fantail-feathers. When we made it into the cave we were treated to a sight we've only seen on documentaries. The Glow Worms are transparent, about 2cm long and live on the roof and overhangs in the cave. They spin a little silken hammock in which they lay, then spin lots of sticky silken threads that hang down all around them. A chemical reaction in their tail produces a bright blue light with which they lure small insects that get
Kemp House 1822
Mission Garden 1820 stuck in the threads and are consumed. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures, but just look up on a clear and starry night and you get very much the same effect. A part of the cave is even called "The Milky way" because it really looks just like little blue stars up there. We also saw Pricilla; the friendly local Eel that live is the river running through the cave. Once outside we took a bushwalk back to the office and our cars. We hadn't known what to expect, but it was a great and rewarding experience.
We continued south along SH1 and before long the rain came down again. We had wanted to stop by a limestone reserve, but in the rain we missed it and before we knew it we were in Whangarei. We decided to drive down to Whangarei Heads, about 30km from the city. It was a beautiful drive even though it was raining. When we got there we all piled into our van for lunch, then said goodbye to the Smit gang. They were heading back to Auckland today.
We continued on to Ocean Beach. It was raining so we ran down to
Fountain scope
Psychedelic flowers the beach, took a couple of photos and ran back. As we drove back to the city the sun came out and we stopped at a picnic spot. We had a long nap then drove to Whangarei Falls. Here we watched as a couple of people abseiled over the falls and disappeared beneath the falling curtain of water. It looked like a fun thing to do, but only in summer. We walked around to the bottom, took a few more pictures, then headed back to the van.
While traveling through Borneo we’d made friends through Travelblog. Karen and Colin live a few kilometers outside of Whangarei City and are avid travelers. They started chatting to us cause they were planning a trip to Borneo at the time. They invited us to stay at their place so after picking up some take-aways we headed over there.
They live on a beautiful piece of land with an amazing view over the valley. When we arrived they welcomed us into their home and introduced us to their two dogs. Over dinner we shared a bottle of red wine and chatted about traveling and various other things. When they heard that we
plan to build our own camper they said we could have a sink and water canister that they had pulled from one of their campers. We were delighted and eagerly agreed. We had planned to spend two nights with them because we foolishly thought that September had 31 days. Duhhh! When we realized our error we felt pretty dumb. We could learn a lot from them. They live a self-sustaining lifestyle and have set up their house to be very efficient. We decided to come back for another visit at a later stage. After chatting a bit more we called it a night and crawled into bed.
Today's highlights:
1. Seeing the Glow Worms
2. Long nap.
3. Meeting Karen & Colin face to face.
Wednesday, September 30th
Karen and Colin left early for work and we had breakfast enjoying the great view. We left the Walker house early and headed back to the city. From here we drove south along SH1 then turned of toward the east coast. We arrived in Waipu and drove to the beach, but we were turned away by the fire brigade. This morning there were a few strong earthquakes near the Tongan
Islands so all along the east coast of the north island they expected a tsunami. We headed inland, making for Auckland.
We arrived at the Smit house but Mel wasn't home. We enjoyed our last lunch in our van because tomorrow she goes back to her real owners.
😞
Mel arrived soon after and we unpacked the van and sorted through the huge pile of things we've collected.
The rest of the afternoon was spent hunting for a van and by evening we were thoroughly confused. There are a few options ranging from old and inexpensive to nice, big and a bit expensive. Which one should we buy?
We watched the news to see what happened with the tsunami, but apparently it never arrived here. It did cause some damage and deaths in the Tongan Islands though.
Today's highlights:
1. Not getting swept away by a tsunami.
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