One of the problems about countries which have a lot of space is urban sprawl. Everyone has their own house, no appartments, little thought about using space efficiently. Auckland is a perfect example. A quarter of the entire country's population lives here and it sprawls on & on & on.

So after a fairly tedious drive through it all we eventually ended up out of suburbia and north of Auckland and in Warkworth - a very pleasant town twinned with the original Warkworth in Northumberland. The local tourist office recommended we stay in Tawharanuhi nature reserve, a peninsular with fantastic scenery & beaches not far away. As a nature reserve which contained free ranging kiwis & endangered birds it was surrounded by an electric "anti predator fence" to keep out the stoats, possums & rats. It felt a bit like entering a prison but once in there we had a very pleasant couple of nights - we did some walking, swimming,(even Stewart!) & saw a lot of native birds, but NO kiwis unfortunately.

Next stop on our way northwards was Goat Island marine reserve. Basically a marine reserve is a section of coastline which is protected by law. No fishing allowed. This one was one of the first in NZ and as a result has the most developed marine poulation. We hired snorkels, fins & wet-suits and you just had to get in the water from the beach &it was like swimming in an aquarium - fish everywhere, huge ones, all sorts. Vod even spotted a sting-ray. We also noticed that this far north the water is suprisingly warm, even though it's "autumn" and we've changed the clocks to "winter" time.

Carrying on further northwards our next stop was Kawakawa with its world famous Gaudi-esque public toilets. Made by a local resident Federick Hundertwasser, an Austrian poet & artist before he died in 2000. They were pure Barcelona in the middle of a little provincial town in NZ. Then it was up the road to Pahia & the Bay of Islands. The place where the first Europeans settled in NZ. This far north there is no winter so the weather was warm & pleasant and we booked a sailing trip for the next day - our first time back on a sailing boat since our one week sailing course in the Costa Brava in 2007. "She's a Lady" was a 12 meter yacht and with just 4 other people on the boat + the skipper we sailed out into the Bay of Islands for the day. We stopped on a deserted island beach with golden sand and clear blue water, did some kayaking, snorkelling, had a picnic and then sailed back to Pahia as the wind picked up in the afternoon. Sailing is definitely not like swimming or riding a bike - we had forgotten most of what we learned in 2007 but it didn't matter. We had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Next destination was Cape Reinga, the far northern tip of the North Island to complete our "New Zealand End to End" trip( Michael Palin hasn't done this one !). It was a very very long drive right to the northern end of the country. Overnight a westerly gale had sprung up which guaranteed that we got our heads blown off when we went to visit the Cape Reinga Lighthouse - but worth it to see the view & the swirling currents where the Pacific & the Tasman Sea meet. We also saw the famous rock which juts out into the sea with a lone 800 year old pohutukawa tree perched perilously on it. This is where the maoris believe that spirits descend into the underworld. In a similar vein we spent the night just up the coast at Spirit Bay at a campsite on the beach right on the northern tip of New Zealand.

Next day we finished our visit to Northland with a visit to the giant sand duneswhere you can hire surf boards & surf down them they are so high. They border on "90 Mile Beach"(apparently it's only 67 miles - but still an incredible length beach) which goes the entire length of the East coast of the Far North peninsula & where the locals use it as a road and drive their cars down it. Tourists with hire cars are banned from using it as too many of them have ended up stuck & getting their car washed away by the tide.

This was followed by a vist to the amazing workshop where they use 40 000 year old giant kauri trees dug up perfectly preserved from local swamps to make the most fantastic wood carvings. This included the internal staircase in the shop which is hollowed out inside a 8 metre diameter tree stump and some fantastically inventive furniture - all officially certified made from wood which is at least 40 000 years old - "no trees were chopped down to make these items."

Next stop on our trip the real giant kauri trees.