New Zealand - North Island, the North / Jan 05-10

After a short hop from Sydney we arrived in Auckland for a quick overnight before getting our rental car.  The clerk was very helpful and trusting "Just remember, stay on the left".

The Way up North
Remember, north is supposed to be the warmer (closer to the equator), but New Zealand is having a very wet summer.  I'm sure you're sympathetic. It's a little soggy.

We headed north on the west side of the island.  Lush forests and rolling hills

This area is home to the Kauri tree, which is a huge ancient tree with dense wood.  Unfortunately few large ones are left, but they are protected.  This is the 'Tane Mahuta' (Lord of the Forest) and is much larger than our camera could capture. (51.5 m high x 13.8 m girth)

Found the sea at Opononi

We keep hearing the the scenery changes every 10 minutes in New Zealand and it's certainly true.  We go from rolling pastures

To tropical forests

To mountains (and their tunnels)

Paihia
Our first B&B is in Paihia overlooking a river

Nearby in Kawakawa are the world famous Hundertwasser Toilets!

And this old train

Next day was a cruise to the 'Hole in the Wall'.  The captain threatened to take the ship thru the hole but the swell was too large.

We saw many dolphins frolicking in our wake but they were too quick for the photographer.  We have many shots of empty sea that we'll save for the later slide show.  We also saw a tiny Fairy Penguin all alone in the middle of the sea.

New Zealanders love to camp.  Just pull your yacht into the bay and pop up the tent

The last trek we did was to see glow worms at Kawiti.  There are many glow worm caves but this one was a small family run operation (6 generations of Maori).  Very personable.  The glow worms spend 11 months attached to the roofs of caves, dangling sticky threads to capture mozzies attracted to the light.  There are thousands of tiny dots of lights on the cave we saw, looking like a starry night.  No pictures though, the worms are very shy.

On the way back south
The falls in Whangarei

On the beach

On a cliff walk

Don't slip

We played in the surf here, 'Between the flags' of course.