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| Krush |
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| Kreol |
Following the departure of the van we were fortunate to find a house sit for just over a week in Maroochydore on the sunshine coast, where we had the pleasure of looking after Krush and Kreol - two very friendly but large French Mastiffs. They are both relatively young and very strong, so we had to take them separately for their daily walk, which fortunately was a circuit including 1km through parkland along the shoreline.
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| Glasshouse Mountains |
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| Sydney Opera House |
During the week we were able to explore more of the locality taking trips out to several nearby National Parks and visiting the beautiful coastline around Noosa Heads where we watched sharks and dolphins in the shallows and whales playing further out to sea, and the strange Glasshouse Mountains - cores of old volcanoes. With a couple of days to spare between the end of the house sit and flying to Auckland we went down to Sydney and treated ourselves to an evening at the opera house - La Traviata sung in Italian with English sub titles, but set in the 1950's. A wonderful way to end out time in Australia.
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| Sky Tower Central Auckland |
Arriving in Auckland 3 days after the container was offloaded we contacted the shipping agent to find that the vehicle had cleared both customs and quarantine! We just needed to get the Carnet stamped by Customs, drive the vehicle to a test station to get it approved for use on NZ roads and we were all set to go. Anticipating a week to get the vehicle out we had arranged a couple more short house sits on the outskirts of Auckland so were able to reorganise the vehicle at our leisure, and also make the necessary minor adaptations so the vehicle complies with the NZ self contained requirements, enabling us to use a wide variety of low cost and free campsites. So just over a week after arriving we set off.
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| Beaches of the NE Coast |
Heading North from Auckland (to delay travelling south into colder winter) we took our time following first the east coast, stopping at beautiful deserted sandy beaches, and visiting some of the historic sites, like Russell - the first capital of New Zealand, and taking some walks along the craggy coast between the bays. For the middle of winter the weather has been lovely, mainly warm sunny days, followed by cold nights, with any rain occurring at night.
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| Cape Reinga - North Tip of NZ |
The north of the island is very rural with rolling pastureland and plenty of open space with big skies and fantastic sunsets. Lots of sheep and cows! Cape Reinga is at the north tip of New Zealand where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea, and has suitably turbulent water and appropriate rocky headlands.
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| Cape Reinga Lighthouse |
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| Te Paki Sand Dunes |
To the south and west of Cape Reinga at Te Paki is a 10km x 1km area of huge sand dunes up to 150m high. Surprisingly the sand is firm and easy to walk on, and there are several businesses hiring body boards so you can go sand surfing. The climb to the top was worth it to see the bleak coast and the dunes rising and falling into the distance
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| Te Paki Sand Dunes |
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90 mile beach
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South of Te Paki is 90 mile beach - actually 90kms of wide flat sand which effectively serves as a road at low tide. It is extraordinary driving along at 40mph beside the sea, and seeing commercial vehicles using it as a fast short cut.
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| Giant Kauri Tree |
Our route back south to Auckland took us through the remains of the Giant Kauri forest, where a few remaining pine trees up to 2000 years old survive, with trunks up to 20 feet in diameter.
A fantastic museum displays the history of the local forestry industry and the range of special equipment which was developed to fell, extract and handle the enormous tree trunks, as well as the huge sawmills developed to cut the timber. Felling the Kauri trees has been prohibited since the late 1950's but there has developed a business in extracting fallen trees which have been preserved for the past 30,000 to 50,000 years in the peat bogs. Once dried the timber is used to make beautiful furniture and household items.
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| Slice through a single tree |
We have just completed the tour of the north and are back near Auckland having visited the nearby gannet colony. several hundred birds are just in their nest building phase having returned after the winter and are making nest sites a few feet from the boardwalk and viewing platforms, completely unconcerned by the people nearby. As the sun set we made a quick call at a bird hide just south of Auckland and were rewarded with some lovely views of various waders.
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Gannet Colony
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| Pairing Gannets |
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| Huge Skies |
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| Beautiful Sunsets |
Our plan now is to work our way to the south of North Island over the next three weeks before crossing to South Island.
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Pied Stilt
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Godwit
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