Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2006
Edit Blog Post
World's Most Famous WC
Wendy and our German Hitchhikers From Whangarei, we headed north picking up a couple of german hitchhikers en route. Stopped off to visit the "world's most famous toilet" the walls are partly made from empty bottles and the whole thing is completed by nice tile work - strange but when I saw the signpost I had to investigate. We then took a pleasant little ferry ride to a town on the northeast coast called Russell - it was the site of the first European settlement. Our hitchhikers were going to stay with people they had met earlier and we booked in to the local campsite. We've arranged to get together on South Island for Christmas if we can find a good location.
Went for a walk up the nearest hill - good path only a few hundred feet high with splendid views over the bay. back to the tent for tea - salad and bread - the fresh fruit and vegetables here are amazing ( of course its early summer and everything is just coming into season - a special mention must be made of the local tomatoes and bananas no picking while unripe to ripen in transit. Also tangelos ( a tangerine deivative we
bought at a local farmers market (with the tomatoes, local strawberries, lettuce and olives!).
After tea we walked across the headland to a beautiful beach called Long Beach - it's
maybe a couple of miles long but as we were on the east of the headland we had lost the sun so walked back to the campsite. Everywhere we've been there's been an abundance of birds - today we saw screachers, now identified as Minah birds, Tui (pronounced Tooay which kind of describes their call, a couple of different hawks, yellowheads (like canaries with only the head yellow the remainder brown, reb-billed gulls (legs and bills red as opposed to yellow) I;m kind of keeping a written record.
An early night as we planned to be off early in the morning to head towards the wild west and the mighty Kauri trees (2000 year old monsters)
Sunday up with the birds (literally as the morning chorus here would awaken the dead (at least it wakens me if not always Wendy). Off early to catch the first ferry back across to the mainland (avoiding a 20 mile trip). Headed North first along the coast the views were stunning
everythjinjg you expect of a semitropical pacific sunrise - sun sparkling on the water, misty blue of distant headlines etc etc. Can't quite believe its November - of course its late spring early summer here. Then headed West stopping en-route to phone cara to wish her happy birthday although it was still Saturday evening in UK. Saw a turn off main road "Bush Trail - 6 KMs" so turned off it was a gravel track which wound up into the mountains. Up until this point the landscape had been reminiscent of Scotland if a bit lusher largish hills, lots of grass - lots of beef cattle farming with only some of the trees to indicate that we weren't in the UK.
As we wound our way intio the mountains the vegetation became more lush more luxuriant, more alien tree ferns now dominated you could almost hear things grow. Eventually we came to a small Hexagonal building - it was a craft shop and we stopped to talk to the owner Sue. I have run out of time so will continue this later.
Love to all my many fans
Advertisement
Tot: 0.311s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 13; qc: 67; dbt: 0.1501s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Lorraine
non-member comment
Eat your way round the planet
Hey Willy I'm thinking this would be a good title for your book!