Driving across the northlands from east to west coast we came across some impressively huge sand dunes. The real focus of the day though was visiting the 2000 year old Tane Mahute or God of the Forest . The largest remaining tree in NZ - 18 ft across. It is really hard to show in a photo really how big the tree is but we sat and admired for a while but continuing through the forest to further groups. I wish we had had more time to get to the museum to see the stumps of even bigger ones that were logged but time was pressing and we had to rush on to Auckland to pick up our van, sort bikes and shop. Can it be said that driving an American minivan was quite good preparation for our monster truck. I will try to take a photo and post. A long day of driving through as we carried on to the Coromandel. Ellie and Lilly of course super excited to explore all the features of the van!