Saturday 7th November Whirinaki Forest and Taupo. A lie in today after our late expedition in the forest! We woke to the sound of our tinkling stream and birdsong. We opened the blinds to look up through the tree tops to a clear deep blue sky. The other small tent had vanished so we had our perfect little forest clearing all to ourselves. Whilst Bill prepared breakfast, I went back to nature and rinsed out all our whiffy sulphur impregnated swimwear in the c...

Friday 6th November Woke early today to the sound of surf and with the sun rising behind a group of Norfolk pines. Beautiful golden green dawn light was filling the van through the opened blind. Then we saw the sign... 'No overnight camping in this reserve'. Humph. The camper mate app had been pretty reliable on 'freedom camping' sites so far but we had heard tell of people receiving on-the-spot fines for parking in the wrong place or leaving too late etc. We...

Thursday 5th November. Busy day today and our first target destination was Hot Water Beach at low tide, which was at about 9.00. We were up and running in the beach by 7. Felt very privileged to have the beautiful sweep of silver sand all to ourselves as the sun appeared over the rocky headland to the south. Back home and on the road by 8. The 'freedom camping' was quite remarkable. At first a rather unprepossessing Tarmac pull-in, but in a quiet spot at the ...

Wednesday 4/11 Pohutukawa Coast and Whangapoua. Woke early after a restless night, the motor home rocking in the wind on our exposed headland. Rain lashed the windows as we peered out at the choppy seas below and around us. Good - another cosy lie in with mugs of tea in our nest. Not for long though. The terms of freedom camping are that you must leave by 9am. We did. And parked a short way away overlooking the beach for breakfast. A dull morning of house- k...

Blog Tuesday 3/11 Pinnacles and Billygoat walk. We woke bright and early to birdsong in our stream-side camp. Another excellent 3 course breakfast and then we drove the 100 yds to the Kauaeranga visitor centre and met Mr Kiwi. This lovely man was one of the two rangers running the information centre. He had a long pointy nose, bright enthusiastic eyes behind thick glasses and dark mousy hair combed back off his face to his collar. He was full of helpful advic...