Another long day! After the nightmare of finding our hostel last night we were treated to a nice early 7am start as Charna drove us to Tane Mahuta or the "God of the Forest" - the largest known living kauri tree. These things are so massive that Maoris used to carve entire wakas (boats) out of their tree trunks. This one stands at 17.68m and its trunk measures 13.77m around. We then walked to Te Matua Ngahere - the Father of the Forest - whose "trunk girth" is a crazy 16.41m. It'd take a lot of people to successfully hug that tree.

And then a straight shoot back to Auckland. Car successfully returned. Did we drive on the beach? Of course not...

It wouldn't be a proper New Zealand blog without mentioning my towel. Apparently it's still in Taupo. Why? I don't know. It should be here, and I leave for Hawaii tomorrow. I'm trying to help them with cost by buying a new towel and asking them to cover the cost. Instead they prefer to spend more to send my towel many miles away, back home.

Lastly, I met up with Amy again! I was supposed to see Tasha but that fell through, so I went drinking with Amy. We walked around the waterfront, being brushed aside from a posh Italian restaurant in the process, before settling in a little side street bar. A nice final evening in New Zealand.