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Published: February 2nd 2010
Carla Driving
not as scary as you think and i have gotten pretty good! Driving back from Mangawhai
After our great time in Mangawhai, I (Carla) drove back to Auckland via the fast way. We bypassed a toll road which took us through a beautiful little town called Oneroa. Nick then drove through Auckland and surprisingly enough I managed to navigate him through the big city all on my own to Kumeu, where we took in a car show for the weekend.
Avatar 3-D IMAX
Once the car show ended on Sunday, we decided to hit up the Avatar movie in downtown Auckland at the Sky City Cinemas3D Imax experience. Luckily we got in but we had to sit in the front row. Did you know some Avatar 3-D graphics were developed in Wellywood (Wellington) and that the costumes and language featured in the film are all inspired by the Maori culture? Now you know!!
Back to Northland we go
We journeyed our way to Whangarei but before that we stopped in Warksworth to visit the gigantic Kauri trees. Following the trees we ended up in Dargaville to visit the Kumara (sweet potato) capital of New Zealand.
Whangarei
This city is the most
populated city of the North region and really spread out. It took us some time get to know our way around. The first thing we did was visit the Whangarei Falls- they say they are the most photographed waterfalls of New Zealand. They are very dangerous and are not meant to be jumped off as we heard in the paper the following day. A young person jumped off and obviously hit a rock and broke both arms and fractured her legs.
As you know, we sleep in a tent and we found a great farm stay through the BBH book which not only had great views but parts of it reminded us of home. It was very quaint place and our host,a British ex-pat named Stu, was great!
Cape Reinga
We decided to go visit the Cape and I made sure I had our camera and double checked to ensure that we had lots of battery left and it looked all good to go except when we got there it took one picture and died. Luckily, our phone takes photos so we only took a couple but wished we had our video camera to capture the
toll road to the right
we opted to take the free route through Oneroa beauty of the tip of NZ along with the Maori traditions. The Cape is significant to the Maori as this is where the spirits go when people pass on. This is also where the Tasman sea and the South Pacific meet creating a wave. Its magical!
Heading Home to Tauranga (again)?!
It was decided that we would come back "home" to Tauranga as we weren't having much luck finding work up North and we knew Nick could pick up some labour shifts with an agency in town and I would hopefully find something...
Along our way home we stopped in Paeroa. The town is famous for the 7 meter tall Big Bottle. As a government website states, " the Lemon and Paeroa Bottle is a permanent reminder of the therapeutic Paeroa Springs Water discovered before 1900, which, with the addition of lemon, became known as New Zealand’s own soft drink." Its actually very tasty!
Well that sums up the last three weeks! We hope you enjoy the photos and blog and as always comments, jokes, stories are appreciated!
Until next time...
Cheers!
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ron
non-member comment
envious
love to see where you have been! leaving the dream of so many.