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Published: April 20th 2008
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Thursday morning brought blue skies and sunshine and reminded us why we had come to
Northland first. Although, despite the previous days' it had not once actually been cold - the sub-tropical climate makes even the rain enjoyable! We checked out of Little Earth Lodge, said goodbye to the people we'd met there (including Muttley the dog) and headed north for
Kahoe.
On the way we stopped at
Keri Keri which is becoming quite a thriving town since we last visited (the fastest growing in NZ) and headed to the 'Stone Store' and 'Mission house' which are the oldest buildings in New Zealand and a testament to the first missionary settlers who arrived in the 1820s. We had to apply sun screen and the thermometer in our car hit 28 degrees! After a look around the buildings we had lunch at 'The Landing' restaurant, walked up the hill to the wooden weatherboard St. James Church (the site of the birthplace of Christianity in NZ) and then grabbed an ice cream before continuing on our way north.
The drive up to Kahoe was stunning and we were so busy looking at the rolling hills, dramatic crags, inlets and waterways that
we completely missed our backpackers and ended up in
Mangonui a fantastic little harbour settlement, with a famous fish and chip shop (where we had eaten 3 years ago on our last visit) and lots of little cafes and shops. After a coffee, it was becoming late afternoon so we backtracked 25km down the road to find
Kahoe Farm hostels. The backpackers (another very highly rated BBH hostel) is set on a vast farm, in the most perfect countryside and we had arranged to stay up the hill in a kauri villa built by the great-grandfather of the current owners. That evening, Emma went out to the car to fetch something and had a close encounter with two of New Zealand's infamous possums - cat sized with very bushy tails and weird eyes is how she described them!
The next day, we headed into Kaeo, the nearest town, for some supplies at the Four Square, and then drove back up to another part of Kahoe Farm in order to walk to the rock pools, hidden within the bush on the farm. We set off up a hill to the highest point on the farm for amazing views of the
pacific ocean and the harbours surrounding the area. After that we descended through trees into dense (and in places sharp and scratchy) bush and followed a jungle stream until we finally made it to a clearing. Here, the stream had formed into five amazing rock pools, each interconnected with fast flowing waterfalls. We had a quick swim and then ate lunch in the most peaceful setting you could imagine. We made it back the the villa late afternoon for a well deserved shower. That evening we decided to walk down to eat pizza down at the main hostel, made by Stefano the host, have a few beers and then have an early night.
On saturday, having refreshed our memories regarding the location of that fish and chip shop, we drove back up to
Mangonui to partake of said lunch! After that we took a drive around the nearby coast and visited fantastic beaches such as
Taupo Bay and
Tauranga Bay as well as the pretty harbour/marina at
Whangaroa.
As a footnote, Stefano at Kahoe farms, being football mad, has a collection of random football shirts hanging in his garage. While I was writing this blog, Emma took a
look at the collection, and bizarrely found a Tranmere Rovers away shirt! It's a VERY small world.
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johnformby
John Crick
Once again, beautiful scenery and a great looking backpackers. I think the bird in the picture is a Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus)