On turning south our first visit was to a pub or tavern as it is called. This Tavern started life in the early 1800's to support the shipyard workers. In fact it’s the earliest tavern in NZ. Peter had to have a quick half. It was interesting historically, but a bit soulless, a bit like a large social club for sheep and cattle….. farmers.

We then headed to the site of the Wairere Boulders. Basically it’s a valley full of rather large basalt boulders – the remains of a basalt layer laid down nearly 3 million years ago. The unusual feature of these rocks is their fluting – the only place this occurs in the world so we were informed by the resident geologist. The theory is that the fluting is the result of erosion by rainwater which had become acidic as it ran through the fallen leaves of a massive Kauri forest that once covered the plateau.

Camping has not been a problem as they have lots of camping/campervan sites with good facilities. One night we saw a sign to a mountain lodge so headed up into the hills. We arrived at what can only be described as a desolate run down farm. It reminded us of those scary films with hillbillies and people ending up in bits in chest freezers. So on that note we made a quick U turn and headed to another site. Another night we stopped at a campervan park in a small town right out of the 70’s. It was like stepping back in time with Kevin Keegan perms and young people sporting full beards (mostly the men). In shops the Eagles were very popular as back ground music, forgotten how good they are!

Our best night was when we 'wild’ camped with the Hobos on the docks at Auckland. There is a road that runs around the oil refinery (with good views of the city and bay) where there seemed to be a number of NZ travelers in their homemade campervans and a number just sleeping in their cars. We fitted in well and it is only a few minutes’ walk to the ultra-modern and swish refurbished quay with its bars, restaurants and very expensive apartments.

On a very wet and windy day (Campbell’s condensed tomato soup has been a godsend on these days) we visited a large forest (13,000 hectares) which is the most important and largest remaining Kauri forest in NZ (the Kauri is one of the world’s mightiest trees). We walked to the largest Kauri tree left; it is 51 metres high with a diameter of 4.4 metres. It was just HUGE. Some of the trees are estimated to be around 2000 years old. Larger trees have been recorded but most have been logged. Kauri trees were extensively logged in the last century and even trees submerged in swamp lands for thousands of years have been dug up and the timber found to be as good as new. The resin (gum) the trees exude when damaged was collected (for use in varnish and linoleum) by bleeding the trees but this was found to damage them and so was eventually banned. This didn’t stop the so called Gum Diggers. They dug up submerged forests to collect the old resin. It was a thriving industry at one time. There is a very good Kauri tree museum and amongst its many tree and gum exhibits, it has a huge chair made from a tree trunk radio carbon dated as being over 35,000 years old.

After our night at the Auckland docks we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula. On the way we stopped at the Miranda shorebird centre. We had to walk a good mile to the hide and this took us through some field of cows. Now Peter will tell you he doesn’t like cows but really he is scared of them since a small herd chased him once when he was running. So we had to take a diversion which entailed climbing an electric fence and wooden gate. Peter swears he didn’t let go but I went flying, luckily for him into a nice clean patch of grass and not a cow pat. After all that we only saw a couple of birds, but one was the Godwit which impressed Peter as its migratory path takes it to Alaska via Japan and it makes the return journey in 9 days with no stopovers, over 11,000Kms (the longest migratory flight). This can’t be made any easier by the fact that it has a ridiculously long beak for feeding in the mud.

The following day we embarked on a very sweet train journey. It was a narrow gauge track built by eccentric potter on land he bought because of the good quality clay it had. To get the clay down from the hills he built the train and track. Later getting into financial difficulties he opened the journey up to the public. He continued to build more and more track until he reached the boundary of his property.