We woke up pretty early and got on the road for just after sunrise about 8.00am. We chose a route which was a little out of the way but it paid off for the views. The morning started very misty everywhere but soon burned off, the days have been around 16c and it’s winter! The sun is very warm but nights and first thing in the morning are really cold. We had read on our phones in the news that there had been an earthquake in New Zealand but in Wellington. We had not felt anything, luckily no one was killed but a parliament building has had some damage apparently. We drove across a bridge as it was supposed to be a small back road which we were hoping to get some more views from. It took us through on a road which goes through a golf club, the views were stunning from the golf course up here. We got on our way again and headed for the Kauri forests on the western coast of the northlands. It took a little time to get there but we drove through until we saw the first sign of where to stop and walk to the first site. The first tree we saw was ENORMOUS! We walked down a track for only around 10 minutes wondering where the tree was, we got to the end of the path and turned. The tree was set back a little and we hadn’t seen it at first. It was huge, apparently this is the largest Kauri tree in New Zealand. The girth of the tree trunk was 13 metres! We walked back to the van and drove to the next walking spot. We parked, this car park had it’s own security. There’s been a history of theft from this car park so they’ve employed security which you pay $2 for him to watch your car. With our $2 paid we set off for the walks. The first was called the Four Sisters which was four large Kauri trees together. Then the second walk was to see the widest tree, this was very impressive, it was really hard to take in just how big this thing was. A lot of branches had come away from the top but it had some left which were the size of normal trees. We walked back to the van and wanted to get a lot further south tonight to get to go on a black sand beach so we set off hoping we’d get there in time to see it. We got to Muriwai beach at 3.30pm so in plenty of time to see it by day light and perfect timing to see the sun set. The black sand beach was just that, extremely black sparkly sand all over, the bay was beautiful. We walked up the cliff a little and saw the Gannet colony that they have here, there were also plenty of surfers in the water. The sun started setting we got some awesome photographs and sat on the cliff to watch it set, when it had we went back to the van. We want to spend the day tomorrow in Auckland so we were hoping we could freedom camp close by. It took a little driving and sussing out to eventually by 8.00pm find a car park to settle down in for the night.