Baylys Beach - gorgeous serenity

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After leaving Myleene in Wharapoa or wherever I was, I drove down to Keri Keri, desperately craving Olives (that's your fault Carol, from that weekend before Xmas!) and needing to get to the back as I was down to my last $25. Had a mild panic when it turned out all the banks are closed Saturday morning. Obviously. WHY!? Ah. I can't get money out from the ATM as my pin isn't working, and I can't get cashback from a supermarket as my card isn't EFTPOS and the credit card pin isn't working. So I'm a bit stuffed then eh! $25... not even a tenner. Nice. I woudn't normally have worried that much, except that it's Sunday tomorrow, so no banks, New Years Day after that and then I fly home. And I've got New Years Eve to get through on $25. I won't even get tipsy on that. Hmmm. I popped into a shop, explained the situation, bought some stuff to sweeten them up and the lovely lady in there put an extra $150 through the till and gave me the cash. What a life saver!

After that little drama I started driving down to Opononi. Nice enough drive, about an hour and a half I reckon. I stopped for a refreshing walk along a beach there. Very rocky so I didn't have much of a paddle. The best bit though, was driving through Waipoua Forest. It's all very windy and slow roads, so took a while, but was utterly rainforestastic. There are a couple of stop offs to look at Kauri trees. These are absolutely bloody massive trees that are thousands of years old. Some of the trunks of these things are 13m wide! There was one stop where you could take a 10/20/40 minute walks to them, but it was very crowded and I don't do crowded, so I buggered off instead.

As I came out of the Waipoua Forest (or just before going into it if you are heading north from Dargaville) there was a Kauri Gum Tree souvineer place - all hand written signs and looking a bit "in the sticks" buty I'm a sucker for browsing a souvenir shop, so I stopped off. The woman looked a bit lovely and kept talking to me, but she was explaining the stuff, so it was cool. Aside from having some nice stuff in there, it was all a hell of a lot cheaper than more commerical places, so worth stopping at. They had Kauri Gum, which is amber. It's the sap from the Kauri trees that has hardened, especially when the Kauri Gum trees fall and then just decompose over thousands of years. NZ Kauri Gum (Amber) is about 5,000 years old, whereas Baltic Amber is about 50,000 years old. I bought some rough amber (not highly polished), and also some not even worked on, so it still looks a bit rough round the edges and if you rub it, it smells!

From there I drove to Dargaville, where I was staying that night. Sue in the Woodturners workshop was fabulous and managed to sort out a bit more cash for me, so I should be ok now. Her husband is the wood turner and has some gorgeous stuff. I just wanted to bring it all home, I love wood. Then I headed out to Baylys Beach. It's the longest driveable beach coast or something (different to 90 mile beach, which is actually 90Km). It's a sandy sparkly beach, no stones or rocks, and just goes on forever. The sea was fiercly rolling in, lovely blue and green. There was the odd dark cloud, but the sun shone through nicely and everything looked so fabulous. I took a long walk up the beach (I only came back as I was desperate for the loo - that always gets in the way!) and felt much refreshed.

That evening I grabbed something to eat (far too many jalepnios, I was crying they were so hot - it's all your fault Linette!) and had it in the gardens there. Very pretty and nicely designed beach garden, ship playground for kids (like the one us kids played on at Shoreham), a lovely Fern garden I liked too. I then went into Wollworth's supermarket about bought the best part of the $30 of chocolate we don't have in the Uk so I can share it in Worthing. You should have seen the look on their faces, very funny.

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