Today was the day for getting out of Auckland, heading north towards the northernmost point in NZ - Cape Reinga. We drove for an hour or so until we reached Helensville - a small town with a few shops, an information centre and a library with free internet! We had half an hour on the computers then booked our next campsite from the phone outside.

We continued north towards Matakohe. On the way, we heard on our 'Tourism Radio' about the Kauri museum - the only museum in NZ that Tourism Radio recommend! And it was at Matakohe - worth a stop! Since we've been here we've found out that Kauri are giant trees that kiwis are very proud of.

In the museum, we asked to join the guided tour starting at 2pm. It turned out to be well worth the money. Our guide was Jos, whose great grandparents were involved in the kauri industry in the mid 19th century. Pioneers came from Europe to log the trees for the gum and their timber. The tour started in the gum room, where Jos explained how valuable the gum was - it was used for lino flooring, dentures, and lots of other things! We moved into a room containing the centre of a huge kauri tree, a tram used to transport the logs (driving it was a risky business, lots of men got crushed by the logs!) and a horse pulley system. The whole industry was hard, dangerous work but they had lots of clever ways of transporting the logs, including building dams, rolling the logs to into the stream behind the dam, then releasing the dam and letting the logs flow down the river system.

The next room showed a recreatino of the steam mill which must have saved the men a lot of work! We also saw a recreation of a merchants house, where the manequins are modelled on staff and volunteers from the museum - including our guide, and a full size boarding house, where the kauri merchants used to stay when travelling from town to town. Finally, we wandered outside and saw an old post office and a school-room, including some interesting rules for teachers from 1915! All in all it was a fascinating place and well worth the entry fee.

After the museum we found our campsite and spent the evening in the lounge there - Laura did a puzzle and I watched Whale Rider, a flim from a Maori director about a young girl who believes she is destined to be the next leader of her tribe, but has to battle against the wishes of her grandfather to prove it! Another brilliant, tiring day!