Waipoua Kauri Forest

The 15th of July was another major travel day, the first of two in fact as I was making my way from the very top of the North Island in Kaitaia, to the centre and Rotorua, which is quite a bit of a journey. But that wouldn’t stop me from making a lot of stops to enjoy my self on the way, not to mention the fact that driving through the New Zealand landscape is quite a treat.

My fika company

While my initial plan was to take the ferry across the Hokianga harbour, I realised after my first little break for coffee at the cross roads with some cows, that it would be very tight to make it in time. Instead, I went the long way round, and after a while found my self being routed by Google through gravel roads on a “shortcut” through a bend in the major road. I do think it actually was a shortcut in the end, but was a little bit hairy with the amount of road damage caused by the recent foul weather. Probably around two hours after setting out, I arrived at my first stop, the Koutu Boulders. Very round large rocks that I had found on maps while scouting this leg. What I hadn’t paid attention to was the fact that they were on the foreshore, and it was high tide when I got there.

The Koutu Boulders

With quite significant wind and waves, I wound and jumped my way out to the rocks, being close to turning back at multiple times due to kinda encroaching on private land and also just the difficulties of making it forward with no sight of the goal. But I persevered and was rewarded with some really cool rocks, and also some amazing views over the harbour. Then, back again, more or less making it back dry footed. Though I did have to step out into a stream to be able to make the jump over the deep part, trying very hard to find places for my feet that were shallow enough to not soak my very much not waterproof shoes.

Hokianga harbour

Next was lunch, sandwiches, while enjoying the view of the Hokianga gate and getting blasted by the wind which was really picking up as I was closing in on the western shore of Northland. That gate was my next stop, more specifically the southern spur with its Signal Station lookout. Starting out with a lovely exposed stone hill at your back when leaving the carpark along a protected path, only to meet the full brunt of a roused Tasman Sea with winds at least above 20 m/s (I think, that’s allways very hard to guage). Then out along this narrowing, erroded sand peninsula with some really lovely views both i towards the harbour, and out at the open ocean.

That was all for my first general stop area, with my next goal, Waipoua Kauri Forest, being about another half an hour’s drive away. Which brought with it an enormous change of scenery, from rugged sand cliffs to deep tempered rain forest on a winding highway through the mountainous forest. Here I visited Tāne Mahuta, the largest Kauri tree in the world, which is so large that it is hard to really grasp in person, meaning my photos will definitely undersell it. More than 15 meters in circumference, and 45 meter tall, it is supposed to have enough volume of wood to build and fully furnish three houses.

Tāne Mahuta

Then a short drive on a road flanked by other massive Kauri, to the second largest, and way older Kauri, Te Matua Ngahere. This tree could be around 4000 years old, making it a seedling at the time of the pyramids being built, and is even girthier than Tāne Mahuta. To get to it, one must walk a little bit of a walk through the dense forest, with there every couple of meters being another one of these Kauri giants standing sentinel.

Te Matua Ngahere

When getting back on the road after that little detour, it had just started raining, and I had my first and only really major mess up with driving on the left. Because I left that little parking on the right side of the road, and it took me maybe a minute to clock that. Luckily nothing happened, and this was on snaking forest roads so no extreme speed, but I did meet another car a couple of minute, and it did leave me quite shaken. Though I still enjoyed the rest of the drive through this magical forest, feeling like something left from the dinosaurs, and the only large Kauri forest left in New Zealand after logging and now the Kauri dieback disease.

The Kai Iwi Lakes

My final stop for the day, was the Kai Iwi Lakes, which are famouse holiday lakes with apparently very nice water. However, this was a cold winter day (for New Zealand, so equivalent to like a cold summer day in Sweden), and as such that aspect wasn’t much to write home about for a tired me after a long day of driving. However, the lighting was really spectacular, which mostly made up for it. Then another hour of driving until I finally got to Whangarei after dark, and checked into my prison cell.

Cell Block Backpackers

Yes really, the hostel I stayed at was a repurposed prison. With some very cure kittens