Northland Roadtrip!

Hanging out at Matauri Bay

 Monument to the Rainbow Warrior; the ship that was sunk by French saboteurs in Auckland Harbour

I found an octapus!

am I still in New Zealand?

lighthouse at Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of the north island

This Kauri tree is called the Lord of the forest.  It is about 2,000 years old!

For one of our last trips, we decided we needed to venture north.  Our first day we woke up in Paihia after driving late friday night.  It was a cute little town on the water, and along the outskirts we visited a waterfall called Haruru falls.  We headed further north and visited the beautiful Matauri Bay.  The beach was nice, andthe view of the Cavalli Islands a short distance away were incredible.  While we were there we climbed a nearby hill and visited the Rainbow Warrior Monument.  The view from the top of the hill was beautiful and we saw several rainbows because it was raining somewhere off the coast.

 

The next day we beach hopped along the east coast.  The first beach we visited early in the morning was pure white and full of little curly sea shells.  The next beach had big rocks that you could climb out on to look at tide pools and find tons of little creatures!  We saw lots of starfish, hermit crabs, and these wierd pink plant covered crabs.  The highlight tho was when I decided to wade into some shallow water and not 5 feet away drifts an octapus!  He was bright orangish pink and he hid under a rock.  then he decided to float gracefully out and sprawl across the sandy bottom changing colors to match the ground right before our eyes!  It was so amazing! Later that day, after taking a nap on yet another beautiful beach, we headed for the northern most tip of the north island called Cape Reinga.  But before we got too far on our way we ran into a town called manganui which had a world famous fish shack.  I had some freshly caught snapper, mussles and scallops. mmmmmm.   After that we stopped off at some sand dunes.  To me it seemed so random!  It doesnt fit the green sheep covered landscape at all, but there they are!  People were sledding and boarding down the huge dunes and I wished we had brought something to slide down on.  David and Jacob thought that was unecessary and pencil rolled down the huge hills solidifying their sandy state for the rest of the trip.  After the dunes we drove to Cape Reinga just in time to catch the sunset.  We climbed up a big hill to watch the bright misty sunset over the ocean.  There is also a really cool lighthouse at cape reinga that is solar powered.  The combination of  rocky cliffs, the lighthouse, and the sunset made for some great pictures.   

 

The last day we made our way down the west coast and visited Waipou Kauri Forest.  There we saw a tree they call the Lord of the Forest.  It is about 2, 000 years old, 13.8 meters wide, and 51.5 meters high.  It was huge!!After that we made our way home to Auckland.  It was definitely a great trip and I felt good that I had explored more of the island that I've been living on for 4 months.  

oooo I almost forgot their are TONS of wild hedgies up north!!  Seeing them made me really miss Ollie:(  This entry is for you my little ollie!