Big beach, big tree, big tower

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- FOOD: Pizza place at Mission Bay with far too much choice of toppings. Ice cream parlour at Mission Bay with far too much choice of flavours.

- AREA: Lovely long stretch of deserted beach. Ocean meets lake - what a sight. Te Matua Ngahere - huge Kaori tree. Sky Tower with mad Sky jumpers and good views of Auckland. Smelly Rotorua with sulphur fumes coming up through the drains.

- PEOPLE: More Escape van tourists to chat to. Nice local man who towed us as we'd run the battery flat! Sad goodbyes to Stuart and his family. My friend Louise joined us.


Wed 3rd: Woke up to discover yet another Escape van had parked up. How weird to see that the only 3 vehicles there were all Escape vans!
The beach was so very long - all 90 miles of it and a gorgeous site to wake up to. Very relaxing with lots of little streams coming off and barely a soul in sight.

After breakfast and a chat to the other Escapees we learnt an important lesson - DO NOT fall asleep reading with the light on in a campervan. The battery was of course flat and the other vans had already left. After unsuccessful attempts to get a very unfriendly American couple to help us, we went knocking on the doors of the locals. A nice man was in and towed us to start her up (whoops - the second tow of the trip already), giving us a lecture at the same time!
Lessons are there to be learnt however and we used an earlier one to realise we did not have time to drive up to Cape Reinga - the most Northern tip where 2 oceans meet.

So sensibly drove back to Auckland along the coast - stopping instead at a viewpoint where ocean meets lake (WOW). We took the ferry across the lake and stopped at Waipoua Kauri Forest where we took 10 minutes out to visit Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest) and phew, what a Father he is too. 5 metres in diameter making him the biggest and oldest (2000 years). So much for the tree I'd originally stopped at in awe of it's twig like size in comparison.

Arrived back at Stuart's only 2 hours late - better than a whole day I guess. We all went out for a meal with a very well behaved Reuben and 2 of their mates - yummy pizza toppings and far too much choice. Then off for a few Belgian beers to say my sad goodbyes to my long lost cousin! Reuben enjoyed his second big night out asleep in his chair for most of it. Let's hope it's not another 13 years before I see them all again.


Thur 4th: We left Stuart and Joanne's for the last time and went to the airport to pick up my friend Louise. SO nice to see her again - another friend from back home.
After a quick ice cream refresher (next to the Belgian bar and so worth a visit) we headed to the Sky Tower. Thought after all this time in Auckland it was called for. At 328m it's the highest structure in the Southern Hemisphere (yes, I thought Kuala Lumpur was in the Southern Hemisphere too).
Bit of a tourist rip off scandal going on here with 2 levels - the second really not much higher but of course a few bucks more to go up. The first level was much better with info galore, a see through floor (scary) and places to watch the Sky Jumpers risk their lives hanging from 2 piddly looking ropes before dropping down to the bottom... I think this madness gave me momentum to book a sky dive - which I dragged Lou and Laura in with me...

We met Lou's friend Mary and the 4 of us drove onto Rotorua. Lou and Mary sensibly stayed in a hostel whilst Laura and I found a nice park to stay in. We had a few drinks in the local bar (the only one that was open) which was very chainy and a tad on the meat market side before settling down for the night... which wasn't so easy to do due to the smell of sulphur and the sight of it coming up through the drains (Stephen King's IT attached itself in our minds but I didn't dream of freaky clowns).

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