North from Auckland

Thursday 21st January

We flew overnight from Singapore by Quantas, eight hours to Brisbane, changed planes in Austraila (another red dot to put on our map of the world) and then four more hours to Aukland. According to Rainman, Quantas have never crashed, but they probably haven't won any prizes for their food and service either.

A minibus took us to the Rendezvous hotel, which looks remarkably similar to last hotel in Singapore!

Feeling horribly tired we trudged to the harbour and had a paella and a glass of wine before returning to the Rendezvous and hitting the sack at ten.

Our body clocks are totally stuffed up, so we awoke at four this morning. The hotel did an awesome breakfast of everything you can think of. One of our choices looked like yoghurt with oats, which is a "healthy choice" at home. The chef replenishing the supply told us it was actually muesli with cream, no wonder it tasted bloody good. Call me Mr Blobby.

The car we collected from Avis on Nelson Street is a silver automatic Toyota Corolla, very easy to drive but unremarkable. We headed over the bridge and went north up Highway 1. At lunch time we stopped at Matakohe for the Kauri Museum, which was very enjoyable and interesting.

Kauri are giant trees, the second largest in the world. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries they were harvested for their excellent timber, which was used to build some to the top racing yachts. Thousands of years ago many kauri were killed and fell into swamp were their timber and resin were preserved. Swamp timber is still extracted from the ground today and can be used, some of it is thirty thousand years old! The fossilised resin formed a type of Amber which was extracted from the earth and exported to make paint, varnish and linoleum. It was once a major industry across the Northlands, and many Dalmatian people (from modern Croatia) dug out the resin.

After stuffing our faces with pies and cake in the caff (I'm soooo weak) we drove further north to find the kauri trees in Trounson Park and Waipua Forest. They are absolutely enormous, I mean seriously huge, like a Plane Tree on steroids. We visited  Tane Mahuta, the largest surviving kauri, and it felt quite spiritual, like entering a cathedral. Driving through the forest the two lane road became one lane in order to pass between two monster trees. The forests are also full of magnificent tree ferns and palms, giving them a prehistoric feel.

Our final destination was Opononi, a hamlet on the shores of Hokianga Harbour. Our hotel has stunning views of giant dunes over the water, hundreds of feet high.

What a wonderful day! I'm beginning to get used to rain forests.

Aukland harbour, near the Maratime Museum

Julie admiring foliage in Trounson

Tim and part of a two thousand year old kauri tree

The view from our room in Oponomi (with thumb)