From Ahipara, we drove south and caught a ferry across to Rawene. We only stopped there to buy a bag of avocados, but it wasn't a bad little spot.

Katy pointed out that it was a good example of how many small towns in the Northland area of the North Island have much more character than their counterparts in the South Island. They have buildings that aren't just functional rectangles with tin roofs - some are quite old and many have an attractive, decorative style. It will be interesting to see whether this pattern is repeated in the rest of the North Island.

Lunch was taken at the seaside town of Opononi, made famous in the 1950s for a dolphin which used to play with bathers. We were on the south side of Hokianga Harbour where the terrain was perfectly normal. On the north side, it was just a series of massive sand dunes, like those we had sand boarded down a couple of days ago near 90 Mile Beach. We wondered how the sand could have blown in and covered one part of the land, yet apparently missed another, just half a mile away.

Our main reason for exploring this part of the country was the Kauri trees, which once dominated the New Zealand landscape and can grow to a massive size. The tallest of them still living is called Tane Mahuta, or 'Lord of the Forest'. We parked up alongside a couple of coaches and various cars and made our way the few yards through the wood to see this specimen.

Well, it certainly was pretty large with a height of 51.2m (17.7m of which is trunk) and a circumference of 13.66m. Even more impressive was the fact that it was thought to be around 2000 years old. The experts can't be sure because for some reason they don't take a sample to count the rings.

However, Kauri ages can be estimated by counting the rings in dead ones and comparing the size of the trunks to living trees. This is because once a Kauri breaks through the canopy of surrounding vegetation in the forest, its trunk stops growing upwards and just becomes thicker with age. Therefore the wider it is, the older it is.

We were told all this by the guide who took us on a walk through Trounson Forest that night with the aim of seeing the rather rare Kiwi. This poor flightless bird, burdened with being the country's national symbol, is under threat mainly because small mammals introduced by Europeans love to eat its eggs and also the young birds. The main culprits are possums, stoats, dogs and even cats.

We walked in near darkness along the pathway as our guide showed us other forest creatures. We saw a couple of eels, slithering around in shallow streams - one of them had been nicknamed Colby by the Rangers because of all the cheese they had fed it over the years.

We also saw some glow-worms and a nasty-looking insect called a Weta - an inch-long body, with large legs and feelers waving around. They aren't dangerous, though can apparently deliver a decent bite, and live on decaying vegetation.

Two elderly New Zealand women in our group were particularly annoying. They kept talking in voices designed to scare off any indigenous life forms - and it wasn't as if their conversation amounted to anything.

"Are you still there?" one of them constantly asked the other as we all shuffled along in single file. "Not if I could get away with it…" was my tempting reply.

When we all stopped to listen in silence to the forest so that our guide could possibly detect the sound of a Kiwi rummaging through the undergrowth, neither of them could keep still. There was a constant rustling of clothes and I'm sure I heard one of them rearrange her dentures at one point.

Each and every stop to listen was followed by the same conversation, which I quote verbatim:

First Old Bat: "I couldn't hear a thing."
Second Old Bat: "I could. I've got very good hearing."
First Old Bat: "Well, I couldn't hear a thing."
Second Old Bat: "I could. I've got very good hearing."
First Old Bat: "Oh. I couldn't hear a thing."
Second Old Bat: "I could. I've got very good hearing."

Probably only Thomas will understand the following reference, but I was longing to call for my Uzi 9mm!

Even better, however, was when we were being shown the largest Kauri tree in the park. Now, as every New Zealander knows, the Maori arrived in the country around 1200AD. Our guide explained that this particular tree was around 1500 years old. Did I say "every" New Zealander just now? Sorry, make that every NZ national bar the two old biddies, who proceeded to debate whether the tree had been planted deliberately!

Pass me the Uzi and extra ammunition, please!

Richard

PS In the end, we didn't see any Kiwis, though we heard a male bird two or three times calling out into the night. Or perhaps it was just laughing at us?