Tane Mahuta, the god of the forest
Father of the Forest
Steve, the terribly creepy mannequin. Why does he have a name tag!?Right I'm on a timer here so I have to be quick. And also pictures will be a long while yet cause I've lost my camera lead (which cost me 20 dollars).
Anyway. Upon leaving Auckland the other day we ventured into Northland via 'motorway' 12. Most of the roads here are akin to rally courses albeit really well paved rally courses. And when they're not like like they're terribly dull. Going through countless little towns which all look the same. For all the beautiful places they have here they sure do have an awful lot of ugly ones. Northland at the start for the most part was long flats of farming land with brief intermissions of tiny towns with names I can't remember and don't care to. They might as well have been the same place run past my window several times over. All the streets look the same, all follow the same kind of grid plan. Dargaville being the highlight of dullness on our way. For a while it seemed like Hamilton country. Our first stop on our way was the Kauri Musuem. A place that allegdedlt gives a fascinating insight into the history of the Kauri tree and will leave you amazed. It was the single most weird experience I've had here. The majority of the museum is taken up by creepy mannequins of ' pioneers' placed in different settings. Like their houses or barber shops etc. I was really at loss as to what exactly this had to do with Kauri trees. The first one was an old style kitchen with three life size dolls. A mother and two children, one an incredibly unsettling little child in a high chair and the other a bizarre girl boy hybrid with some unidetentifed white substance covering its hand. On a little plaque under the display was a message from Pete "your friednly musuem guide'. "Can you see the boy stealing the cream?" Both insightful and fascinating. Other highlights included a robotic cow that was 'milked right before your eyes!' i.e twitched like it was having some form of seizure. And a huge room paying homage to the sawmills that killed most of the kauri. Including an entire wall of chainsaws, some bigger than I am. Ironically this was the only part of the museum that had really very much to do with Kauris.*
Luckily an hour or two after this we eventually made it to the Kauri forest. The scale of the place is just awesome. It is impossible to capture in pictures, the most impressive being The Father of the forest( can't remember it's Maori name). The tree looks like a cliff face, again it is impossible to convey the feeling of awe being in the presence of it. And the whole forest is full of them, most at least as big as that one I described in an earlier post. After the forest again more dull landscapes rolled past and sleep threatened to take me a few times but I managed to stay awake till we got to Kaitia. At the southern most tip of 90 mile beach where we stayed for the night.
We headed out early the next day hoping to reach Cape Reinga before the arrival of the dreaded tour buses. Bout 3/4 of the way there we were stopped by roadworks and asked by a nice lady if we wouldn't mind coming back in about half hour. They were putting metal on the road. I don't know why either. We used this half hour to take a look at the Giant Te Paki sand dunes. I'll tell you now they certainly live up to their namesake. Huge hulking things they are, hundred feet or more and stretch for miles in every direction. Standing in the middle is like being in the middle of the Sahara or some such. Tremendous fun to throw yourself off as well, though likely to get sand every as a result(and yes I mean everywhere). After this brief soiree we made it Cape Reinga. Again an amazingly beutiful place, a walkway perched on high cliffs look down on where the Tasman sea( I think) and the Pacific Ocean crash together. Its really something to see, the size and power of the waves. We also had a splendidly sunny day so that helped.
Right I've only five minute left so I'd best wrap this up. We've made our way back down through Auckland( with a stop off last night in a horribe little caravan park) and across the southern end of the Cormondal ranges(rainforest), which were shrouded in cloud as we crossed so that was pretty cool. Tonight we've come to rest in a nice little seaside town called Tairua, at the foot of the ranges. And tomorrow we're off to Hot Water beach and Cathedral cove. Next update will probably be when we get to Wellington, so Sunday I reckon.
*Another great Kauri attraction was "Ancient Kauri Kingdom. FREE ADMISSION!" It was in actual fact a shop.
Also apologies bout spelling mistakes and such, this was very rushed.
