Top of the North
Fraser and I decided to make the most of the end of summer and check out Northland. We went up the East coast (Paihia, Kerikeri & Doubtless Bay), all the way to the very tip and back down the West coast (Kaitia, Hokianga & Daragville).We went out on a boat for the afternoon, in Paihia, to the hole in the rock and dolphin watching. We saw a whole squad of dolphins, including a baby one... but unfortunately this is my best picture of them
Cape Brett Light House:
Hole in the rock:
Head in a hole:
Doubtless Bay is absolutely gorgeous but all the accommodation along the main route (State highway 10) is extortionate... some places up to $1050 a night! So we went round the bay a bit and stayed at the Whatuwhiwhi Top Ten Holiday Park, which was really nice; about 100m from the beach; and really reasonably priced.
Here's a picture of the Te Paki sand dunes. It's a little hard to appreciate from this picture just how Massive these dunes are. The one at the back if about 4 times bigger than the one in the foreground and Really freakin' steep. So we hired some boogie boards and slid down. Although Fraser only got half way down before he decided to do a face planting somersault, very funny, and he still has sand in his ears! heehee.
We stopped at Rawawa Beach to go for a swim (wash the sand off)... it was really gorgeous, the silica sand was white-as the water was crystal clear (and warm!)
We took the car ferry across the Hokianga Harbour... but we left the lights and the radio on for the whole trip so when we went to start the car we found the battery was totally flat. Some American tourists tried jumper leads to start it but it didn't work. So Fraser and some helpful bystanders pushed the car up hill and then along the wharf till it jump started. phew!
In Hokianga, we stayed at the Tree House Backpackers, but it was continuously pointed out to me that it wasn't so much a tree house as a hut in the trees. It was still cute though! If you decide to stay here I recommend you bring some food with you, especially if you're arriving lateish otherwise you might be hard pressed to find anything. The hostel does have frozen meals you can buy, but they only provide 1 microwave so there were queues.
So that's about it for the trip, except we stopped off at Tane Mahuta which is a 'massive' Kauri tree. 13.5m in girth. :)
posted by Bree @ 10:26 am
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