Determined to see the whole of New Zealand Aidan and I drove up to Northland in search of beautiful beaches and gorgeous weather. It was almost winter and the locals complained all the time about it being cold, we thought it was warm, which made a nice change.

Visited the Bay of Islands. This is where we had a short history lesson at the site of The Treaty of Waitangi. Camped by the river with lots fo ducks. I fed them some bread and they stayed all night.

Next destination was 90mile beach, part of NZ highway but our camper was not allowed on. We walked a little way down and drew some big pictures in the sand for passing bus trips.

Desperate to go sand tobogganing we hired some sledges and went in search of dunes. Went the wrong way and ended up getting camper stuck mid way through a 3 point turn. With excellent team working skills we somehow manged to get ourselves out of that one.

Found the beach to dunes but tide was to high to get to them so sat and waited. When we finally got to the dunes they were huge! Aidan being a brave soul went to the top. With an audience (locals came to watch) he fell out of his sledge and tumbled all the way down. He was gutted when I said it looked unimpressive and lame.

Our final day we went in search of the giant Kauri trees. Aidan said a trip to NZ would be incomplete without seeing these mighty trees. They really were big and it was worth the hours of twisty roads to see them.

We headed back to Auckland to clean our camper inside and out and get ready to go our seperate ways (us and the camper not me and Aidan).

Katie.