Our plan was to drive up the left hand side of Northland, as the wilds above Auckland are known, to our motel in paiha on the bay of Islands, and the back down the right side tomorrow. We left auckland behind after a short detour to a laptop shop to drop Vickys broken one off, once again crossing the harbour bridge. We were looking for big old trees, although they would have to go some to beat devonports offering, of the kauri variety. We stopped in a really small town at an 'award winning' restaurant for lunch. It turned out to be quite good, although Chris was a little concerned by the hillbillys on the next table. The big tree we were looking for was in the middle if a Kauri forest, unsurprisingly, where we had to drive on some if the windyist roads we had come across yet, and New Zealand has plenty of them. They had made a nice little path to it and a viewing platform. It is called Tane Mahuta and us estimated at 2000 years old..
We then continued North. We rounded a corner on a country road and came across the most amazing view.
It is a bay called Hokianga harbour, and apparently they ship the sand out to other areas of New Zealand as it is so good and plentiful. You could see for miles all around, sea and hills.
The road across country was also really pretty. We stopped off for a short time at the horseshoe shaped Haruru Falls, then continued into the very picturesque town of Paiha and our motel, the Austria Motel. The lady showed us to a wonderful apartment with a small loggia with views over the bay of Islands and we sat outside with a glass of New Zealand red watching the sun go down. It doesn't get any better. Well, not unless you are Chris and you go to Jimmy jacks rib shack for tea.
Notice how ginger my hair is
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