Over breakfast today we chatted to a French couple also staying on the site. They were on their way South and told us about a tour to Cape Reinga they had done from a town called Kaitaia, they highly recommended it....hmm!

We set off for our long day of driving, with a few stops along the way. The first stop was Bayley's Beach! We drove right onto the beach and took some photos then ran back to the van as it started raining! The next stop was in the kauri forest to see 'Te Matua Ngahere' (Father of the Forest - the widest kauri tree), the Four Sisters (in the picture) whihc is a group of 4 trees that share the same roots, and the magnificent 'Tane Mahuta' (Lord of the Forest) which is the biggest living kauri tree. It was brilliant to see these trees in their environments, where they've been for 2000 years! Especially after visiting the musuem the day before.

We got back on the road adn soon had to stop at a picnic spot as the views over Opononi Bay were incredible. We took some photos and then decided to have lunch while we were there, so we got out the stove and made noodles (nice and cheap!).

Next we drove to Rawene to get the ferry over the water to Kohukohu. By now we had decided to pay the $50 each to do the bus tour up to Cape Reinga, as we'd be saving the petrol money to drive there ourselves! We stopped at the first payphone we saw and booked ourselves onto the tour for the next day. Around 5pm we finally arrived at Ahipara Holiday Park, exhausted from the days drive. We got an unpowered site to save some money and cooked tea in the site kitchen. We sat by the open fire and watched 'Marley and Me' with a few families on the sofas (so sad!). We went to bed early to get warm as it was starting to get very cold!