Lord of the Forest

You can read the story if you like but another stop and a little walk to our last big tree.

Off to see the Kauris

So I bet you're wondering by now what the hell is a Kauri anyway.

So it's a big tree native only to the North of NZ and here are 2 notable examples. The Four Sisters is 2 trees with two trunks each all merged together and the other is the 2nd biggest - can't remember the name.

There you go.

Cleansing river

Stopped off at the river to clean an inch of mud of our boots. A nice place for a fag too!

In the woods

Up early and drive up into the Waipoa Kauri Forest proper. A quick stop at the Visitors Centre and then set off on the Lookout Trail. Trail went up through the forest for one very muddy hour. Luckily I had my very sensible walking boots on but Brian had his bright running shoes on - not bright any more!

Got to the top and there was a tower to climb up with views of the 9,000 hectare forest.

An hour back down the trail and time for a ham and cheese wrap!

Kauri Coast Holiday Park

Staying the night in a great little camp site right in the National Park with a river going round it with kids floating down on rubber rings. Got chatting to the neighbours (did we have a choice?!) and they gave us some tips for the next few days. Nothing like a bit of local knowledge then!

Long drive Rotorua to Kauri Coast

Set off early as we decided to do another long jump right up past Auckland to the North so that our last 3 days would be more relaxed. Generally pretty good roads and the sat nav came into its own negotiating all the spaghetti junctions around Auckland. Made a pit stop to replace the spare wheel as if another one went we'd be buggered! Made a bit of a mistake getting back on the motorway as we ended up going South again before we could u-turn and head North again. Tsk!

Eventually got to Kauri Forests so we could spend the day doing trails the next day. The end is nigh.

Karaoke in the park

Had a wander around town. There was some really bad singing from wafting from the band stand which the locals seemed to be flocking to.

When back to the camp site took advantage of the facilities and had a soak in the thermal pools for a bit. Nice to spend a day seeing sights and chilling :-)