Waipoua Forest

We left Matakohe first thing in the morning after doing the motorvan chores, filling up with fresh water and emptying out the waste, another first on our journey. Another gloriously sunny and warm day (had to say that, as we have just looked up the temperatures back in Market Drayton - some 20C less than where we are!).

We drove initially to Dargaville to do some shopping in Woolworths and The Warehouse. It would appear that in New Zealand supermarkets sell food and if you want anything else you go to another store - a novel idea we know but we don't think it will ever catch on in the U.K. We also put diesel into the motorvan, very expensive too, 1.35 a litre (sorry forgot to put the $ sign in there so the equivalent price in £ is £0.67).

We then drove on to the Waipoua Forest and saw some of the still-standing Kauri trees. They are magnificent! We didn't get to see some of the oldest which were an hour's round trip on foot, nor Tane Mahuta as there was no space to park the 'van. However we did walk to see the Four Sisters and we attach photos which really do not do justice to the incredible size of them.

It is quite disconcerting when you look at the maps which detail the extent of the Kauri forests at the beginning of the nineteenth century and then the current situation. Whilst efforts are being made to plant a new forest of Kauri they will never be such an important element of the flora and fauna of NZ again. It is a pity that we have not learnt the lessons of the past and continue to destroy vast tracts of the Amazonian and other jungles. (This could be seen as rather a 'dog in the manger' attitude I know, as without the logging in New Zealand – and other parts of the world, we would possibly not have the affluent economies we have and other countries, who continue to remove forests on a massive scale, aspire to.)

We are acquiring more confidence as to where we can take the 'van and actually drove to the Waipoua Forest Visitor's Centre. Sadly, most of the information we saw there we had acquired at the Kauri Museum but we had a cup of coffee and sat and looked out in to the forest and listened to the bird calls, the only sound!

We wanted to get on then, to the Bay of Islands and left the forest to drive down to Hokianka Harbour. We turned the corner to start the descent to be greeted with the following view!

Fortunately there was a view point and car park just there so we stopped to take the photos and ate our lunch looking at the beautiful scenery. The rest of the journey was, as you can appreciate, a little bit of an anti-climax!