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Published: October 31st 2008
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By 10am we were on our way, pleased to get our of the dodgy campsite. We drove up the peninsula to the place where there was supposed to be amazing ice cream. It turned out to be a small shop selling a brand name ice cream so it wasn’t anything special, but we had one anyway. We tried the NZ favourite - hokey pokey - which was vanilla ice cream with honeycomb pieces. It was delicious.
Next we drove to a beach called Rarawa. It was lovely soft, white sand and it wasn’t raining for once, so we were able to walk on it for a few minutes before it got too cold to carry on. There was a brave surfer in the water - even in a wetsuit I’m not sure I could have handled being out there in the cold, but it did look like a great spot for it.
Seeing as we were close to ninety mile beach (which isn’t really 90 miles long at all) we took a turning off to look at it. You can’t see the beach from the road which is annoying as it would have been nice to drive alongside it.
When we arrived, the wind was blowing and it was cold. We had a walk to the sea and along a bit, and even made it up into a couple of the sand dunes, but then it was time to get back into the warm van.
On our way back to the mainland we called into a kauri tree museum, which was really just a shop selling kauri tree furniture and carvings. There were some amazing pieces of furniture costing thousands of dollars, as well as a feature staircase carved out of a massive karui tree.
Afterwards we drove back onto the mainland and went through a few coastal towns before heading towards Hokianga Harbour and catching the car ferry over the water.
It was getting late, and we were quite a way from the campsite we’d planned to stay at, so unfortunately there wasn’t time to stop in the forest to look at the biggest and second biggest trees in New Zealand - we decided we’d have to come back up again tomorrow.
We finally arrived at the campsite after 7pm. We chose this one as it ran guided night walks through the kauri forest
to look at the wildlife. Luckily, the walk didn’t start until 8pm so we had an hour to grab some beans on toast and get wrapped up ready.
There was a surprisingly big group waiting when we arrived at the office to sign up for the walk - about 15 people in total - which is an awful lot given that there barely seem to be any other tourists on the roads or beaches. The lady who had previously checked us in, lead us all to a van and we drove to Trounson Kauri Forest. She gave everyone a torch and we were told to only use it to light our path. She had a big torch that had a red cover over it which she would point at any wildlife we came across.
We set off into the trees and even though it was dark our eyes adjusted quite quickly to the moon light. Almost as soon as we got in, we stopped by a small stream to see a big eel. She fed him some bits of cheese, which he seemed to really like. We walked along a bit further and saw a big snail. She
picked him up and handed him around. It was much heavier than a normal snail and the shell was thick with an intricate circular pattern. Every now and again we stopped and all turned out our lights to try to listen for Kiwis. There are apparently 212 living in the forest and she told us that usually saw them on 50% of the night walks. Unfortunately all we could hear was the rain dripping from the tree tops. We saw lots of glow worms living in the roots of old fallen kauri trees, and when the light was on them we could see the thread that they weave a bit like a spiders web. Further around the walk we saw another stream with more eels and this time they were joined by some nocturnal fish and crayfish. She told us that the eels can eat the crayfish but that they seem to maintain a balance as there is usually some of each in the water.
The next bit of the walk took us to a tree full of weta’s. These look a bit like stick insects crossed with a spider. Apparently they can bite and draw blood but aren’t
poisonous.
As we walked around the boardwalk we suddenly heard the strangest bird cry. It sounded more like a bizarre scream that kept going over and over again. We turned out all of the lights and listened. It was a kiwi calling out for it’s mate. Unfortunately it didn’t come any closer so we didn’t get to see it, despite looking for a long time. At least we’d got to hear one in the wild.
We got back to our van two hours after setting off feeling cold and tired, and ready for a hot chocolate.
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