Northland Roadtrip (08/02/10 - 15/03/10)

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April 18th 2010

Published: April 24th 2010

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Te Matua Ngahere

Or as it translates into English "Big Mofo"

After 3 ½ months of working in Keri Keri it was time to move on. The Mandarin thinning season was finished and so Me, Tim, Janet and Leslie squeezed into Manolito again and set of for a road trip around Northland (the state north of Auckland). After getting the car packed we headed South West and towards an area called the Waipoua Forest. This is a famous forest in New Zealand because it is home to the biggest collection of Kauri trees (some of the oldest growing and biggest trees in the world). And of course there were loads of them. The biggest called Tane Mahuta (or Lord of the Forest in Maori) was the first one we saw and as we drove down through the forest the road was lined with the monsters on either side.

The first night we camped in the heart of the forest and it was a nice camping area apart from getting chomped by creatures left right and centre. It was the first time I used the tent that I bought in Wellington and it turned out to be a nice little purchase… the blow up mattress on the other hand was not quite

Northland Roadtrip

One of the many beaches we stopped at along the way

so good, as I woke up on the floor for the first 2 nights. To find the hole we had to blow the bugger up and chuck it in the river in the camp ground and the climb on and try and find the air bubbles. After a about an hours of floating around like an idiot an trying not to drift down stream the hole was located and professionally duct-taped up.

In the morning after leaving the site we drove to a maze close by that someone had set up in there back garden. It was quite good and there were 18 letters to collect which were supposedly an anagram of a phrase. After none of us could work it out we asked the women in the shop and it turned out to be the very popular phrase “SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT”- so of course none of us were going to guess the bugger!
We also stopped off on the drive to check out some more Kauri trees including the most impressive one called Te Matua Ngahere, and if we weren’t very impressed with the supposedly biggest one; this one (the widest) was a bloody monster… very large!

Lake Kai Iwi

The two colours of the lake are from where the sand dune drops away from the beach

The next place we stopped was another camp ground similar to the Aranga camp we stayed in in Keri Keri. It was nice with some entertainment- trampolines, rope swings and swimming holes. However we had decided that everywhere we went we would try to pay for only 3 people to save money. This backfired a little the next morning when they spotted 4 of us and asked us to pay and leave.

We headed down to a place called the Kai Iwi Lakes. It was an amazing place, a camp ground next to a big lake that was the top of a sand dune, so it was pretty amazing having a lake with a beach. The water was warm and bright blue, and as you walked out into the lake, after about 50 metres the sand dropped away down the dune and the water turned dark blue and cold. It was a real nice spot and so we spent 2 nights there; also it was quite cheap as we managed to get away with saying there were only 3 of us again. After 2 nights here we did a forest walk around one of the other lakes which turned

Forest Walk

Walkway in the forest around the Kai Iwi Lakes

out to be quite an adventure as we took a wrong turn and ended up beating our way through thick bush to try and find our way back to the car.

When we eventually got out of the forest we set off back across to the East coast to a town called Whangarei (pronounced Fongaray). It is a smallish town and we found a more of an urban camp ground where we stayed for 3 nights. There wasn’t a great deal to do in Whangarei but it was a good spot to sort out things like charging stuff, washing and getting to a decent sized supermarket. Also it was the first time on the trip that we’d had a kitchen so it made cooking a lot easier.
We had been cooking everything on the two cooking stoves, which wasn’t too bad because we had all of the pots, pans, plates and cutlery that we needed. It was only an issue when possums came and gobbled our food like in the Kai Iwi Lakes, they helped themselves to a pack of ham, an apple and the most perfectly eaten cob of corn you have every seen.

One of the

Whangarei Museum

Thanks for the complimentary chair... it was necessary

attractions for Whangarei that we had noticed on the drive in was a Kiwi House and Museum, so one day, whilst Tim and Janet were sorting some things in town, me and Leslie went to check out the place.
All I can say is I don’t think I have ever wasted $10 so badly in my life.
The Kiwi house had one kiwi in but it was sleeping in his house so we never even got to see the bugger… the complex had a load of other attractions but because it was a Saturday, they were all shut, and then, the piece de resistance was the museum… oh yes, what a load of shite that was.
However… we had a good time because it was so bad it was funny. So we ended up spending around 4 hours there messing around and complaining, and of course enjoying the complimentary wheelchair in the museum!

After Whangarei, we headed East and North in a circle that would take a day and was a coastal loop to some of the marine reserves and beaches of the area. We first went to the Whangarei falls and then headed out to the coast. We

Oil Cap?

Would have thought that that engine should be fitted with an oil cap Tim

spent a few hours on a beach on the way north and did some skim boarding and body boarding. The plan for the night time was to camp at a site at the north of the loop and then come back down the next day… however the car had other ideas; we realised that if we went to the campsite that we would run out of petrol on the way back and the closest place to get petrol was back in Whangarei; so after Tim checked the oil we headed off back to get petrol… 2 km up the road and Tim thinks, I wonder If I put the oil cap back on… obviously not and so the engine was getting splattered with oil and the cap was nowhere in sight. He decided to run back to where he checked while we waited with the oil-less petrol-less Manolito. After about 10 minutes I decided to go for a look down the road to see where Mr Warren had got to when I noticed an oil cap type object about 10m behind the car… handy. So we jumped in and went to pick Tim up, then drive back down to Whangarei.

Nudist Beach

Happy here because I haven't seen any nobs yet!

By this time it was too late to head back to a northern camp and so we went south towards a town called Waipu and checked into a Department of Conservation (D.O.C) Campground on the edge of a beach at Bream Bay, backed by sand dunes. It was pretty late by the time we got set up and we just managed to catch the last of the sun to set up camp before eating in the dark.
The next morning me and Leslie went to have a look at the 15km beach over the dunes, next to the camp. As we walked down the beach we became increasingly aware of the number of todgers on show and soon realised that it was a nudist beach, including a German fellar standing there with a massive tashe, flying a kite… but it wasn’t the only thing flying in the wind…. Horrible!

Close by to the camp ground was a place called the Waipu Caves; we went to have a look when we left the camp and were pleasantly surprised. It was a free treat and less well known than some other very popular glow worm caves in the country. We set

After Caving

All filthy after climbing through the clay mud of the Waipu Caves

of with torches and shoes through the clay mud into the caves and it was amazing once we got deep into the caverns. When you turned off the lights there were thousands of blue glow worm light lining the cavern roofs and making the place look amazing. We trekked about an hour into the ground and every opening was better than the last with glow worms everywhere. Unfortunately no pictures would do it any justice but it was incredible.

After the caves, we headed down to a place called Sandspit, just next to a big, rich wine region called Matakana. And as we arrived it didn’t start spitting, it started pissing it down and continued for the next 2 days.
It wasn’t too bad though as we had a few days indoors, watching tele which was a bit of a treat after camping for a long time and relaxed at the camp site.

On the final day here we headed out to the coast to a marine reserve called Goat Island; one of the best places for snorkelling of a beach in the world. Or it would have been if the sea hadn’t been so rough… luckily the

Goat Island Marine Reserve

Perfect for snorkelling; if you could see anything. I swam to the island and had an explore

lady in the snorkel rental place wasn’t a scrooge and told us not to bother renting any because we wouldn’t see anything… Instead we went to the beach and I decided to swim across to the Island off the coast. Bit of a mission but I was glad I did. I walked up the island and through the forest and was the only person on it. I felt like Tom Hanks on Castaway or something like that and it was quite a strange experience, but well worth it.

As we were heading slowly south the weather wasn’t too different but you could tell it was cooler than Keri Keri and when we arrived in Auckland centre shirtless and in shorts, we felt well out of place. Tim managed to get hold of some of his old workmates and got us a place to stay at their house out of the town which was nice after a couple of nights in the horrible hostel in the centre. We camped in their back garden for a night before heading off the next day.

We left Leslie in Auckland and headed off just the 3 of us further south towards the

Back to Auckland

Here we go again... back in the city

Coromandel , a peninsula to the East of Auckland, the place where Whangamata was ( a town we visited whilst staying in Auckland). After one night in a DOC camp that was actually closed we got to the Coromandel and camped on a farm campground called Colville, up the West coast of the peninsula. We camped 3 nights there and had a good time. We went fishing the second day at a nearby wharf and although didn’t catch anything edible, it was good. On the 3rd day we went for a 2 hour horse ride through the farm land. I really didn’t want to go because I thought my knackers would be in tatters at the end of the ride but it was really enjoyable. We were aloud to go for it on some of the paddocks and I felt like a cowboy hooning it across the fields on my horse… (a cowboy like John Wayne, not the ones on Brokeback Mountain!).

The final leg of the trip was down the West coast of the Coromandel and the part that we’d been waiting for was a place called hot water beach. It was a really cool spot and is

Conquering Nature

A huge hill that I managed to climb- somehow!

a beach where there is a lot of volcanic activity underneath. So you had to find a spot and dig a hole and bubbles of hot air would come up and heat the water. It was really hot and too hot to bear in places so you had to let some cold sea water into the hole. Unfortunately the day we decided to go to hot water beach was the day that there was a 8.8 earthquake in Chile and Tsunami warnings in place for the whole of New Zealand…. If only we’d listened. Whilst we were enjoying the water a miniscule tsunami or a large wave came in and went right up the beach, soaking everything…. Cameras and phones and stealing one of Tim’s flipflops… hence the reason why I have no pictures of the Coromandel; because my camera was destroyed and my memory card disappeared.

Heading down towards Tauranga, our destination, we stopped for a few nights in a place called Kati Kati where the camp site had hot pools free to guests so we had some late night soaks in them.

When we finally arrived in Tauranga, we had been on the road for around

Cone Head

Taking in the sights of the beautiful lakes

4-5 weeks and had covered most of Northland and the Coromandel, doing a lot, including some things that I missed out because it was just getting too long.

Gonna be looking for work shortly and so it looks like it is holiday over for now.

Craig

(p.s. Having a few problems with the pictures but if you click on one of them it is easier to scroll through them and see them all)
(p.p.s. thanks for reading my essay)

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