Blimin' Mosquitoes!

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You will be glad to know that Rodders is fixed and back on the road! It turned out we had a leak in the water hose that provides the engine coolant, a little hole in the exhaust and a busted tyre. It was all quite minor though - the mechanic had it all done in an hour and it onlt cost us forty quid, thats including labour and tax - bonus!!

Back on the road we headed for Waipoa forest where all the legendery Kauri trees are. These are huge trees, not so much in height but in width, I think the widest girth was something like 17 metres, absoloutely unbelieveable. We took some photos but it was very hard to get the whole of the tree in the shot. Once we had seen a few trees we pitched up camp for the night in one of the conservation camps, it was right in the middle of the forest and had a river running by it. It turned out staying here was the worst decision we have made yet! After a delicious meal of chile con carne we settled into bed in the van, as soon as we turned out the light we could hear a buzzing sound - the all to familiar mosquito. So...Steve set about hunting and killing the insect with torch and swotting book in hand. After a few minutes he honed in on the beast and killed it in one full swoop....great we thought, until we heard another buzz! The next hour and a half continued in this fashion with me in and out of sleep but Steve fully focused on the matter in hand. By about half past one we had both had enough, there were 20 or so squashed mosquitoes on the campervan ceiling and they were still queueing to come in. Without further a do we got out the tent and pitched it by moonlight - at least in there we were enclosed and safe. In the morning we woke to find several bites over our bodies and mosquitoes on the door of the tent waiting to get in! We had to move quickly from tent to campervan to the safety of the kitchen for breakfast!

Next stop was Matakohe where we visited the Kauri museum. Here we learned about the logging trade of the Kauri trees, the methods they used to cut them down and the conditions they worked in etc. It was quite intersting but not as good as the guide book had made it out to be! The rest of the day was spent chilling with a book and snoozing - its a hard life!!

As we left Matakohe the weather began to turn wet, we drove to Coromandel peninsular in the hope that it would be sunny there - no such luck. Now the penninsular is supposed to have more rain than the rest of NZ but .....I have never seen so much rain and it didnt stop all day or night. We spent our day reading, playing cards and pool and sitting on the internet. We were pretty much wet for the whole day, as just walking from the toilets to the campervan soaked you through, regardless of an umbrella or waterproof. On the 2nd day of rain we packed up our stuff (soaked yet again) and headed across the peninsular to Whitianga. Still raining, we took ourselves along to the cinema and watched a good old English flick 'Death at a funeral' - v. funny.

Today we awoke to rain but since then the sun has come out and its a lovely hot summer's day - fab! In saying that we have spent today in a workshop following a bone carving lesson. Both Steve and I designed our own maori themed shape and have spent the best part of the day sawing, filing and sanding bone to make necklaces. I have to say that they have both turned out rather good and as we speak we are wearing them - as apparently you are supposed to wear them to put energy into them before giving them away as a gift. I can tell you that we both put a lot of energy into making them too, my fingers and elbows are still aching.

Tomorrow we are hoping to explore more of the penninsular, hopefully in the sun.

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