Days 22-23: Looping around Northland

We took a tour of the Northland today, driving up to Kaitaia, which is at the base of the 90 mile beach leading up to Cape Reinga, but decided not to head all the way up to the far north end of the island due to time constraints. We then drove back down the western edge of Northland, taking the ferry from Kohukohu to Rawene (the Maori seem to really like words with duplicated sounds – we’ve also seen Karikari, Kerikeri, Mitimiti, and several others). The highlight of the drive was passing through the Waipoua Kauri Forest, a large forest containing many old growth Kauri trees, some up to 2000 years old, with 5m girth and 50m tall! We did a bit of walking through the forest to get close to some of the Kauri trees, but had a long drive so didn’t do as much exploring as we might’ve liked.

We ended the day in Pakiri, back on the south east end of Northland. The next morning we woke up and went for an amazing horse ride along the beach! Mary had a rather unruly gelding named Jazz, but she eventually charmed him into following directions. I had a much more friendly horse named Flame, but still managed to get myself thrown while galloping down the beach. Luckily sand is a great cushion, so I was up and riding again in no time at all. The Kiwis have a very different view of litigation than we do; they skip all the paperwork and assume that the person was at fault, unless they can prove that the operator was negligent.

Afterwards we drove down through Auckland, then across the Coromandel Peninsula, and down to Rotorua. The trip we’ve planned through New Zealand involves a lot of driving unfortunately, but we get to see a lot of both islands in the limited time we have here. As with most of the trip, we’re trying to get a feel for places to figure out where we want to come back to and spend more time, rather than trying to explore them exhaustively now. Makes for an exhausting trip, but we do get to see a lot of the country for only being here 21 days.