When I woke up in the morning the sun was shining bright and I got up. Keiron got up shortly after me, asking what I was doing up at 6.30! However, when we got to the kitchen, it turned out our clock was wrong and it was already 9...

We set off, driving back to Waipoua Kauri Forest. We walked to Four Sisters, four Kauri trees growing right next to each other in a cluster. Te Matua Ngahere, the Father of the Forest, was one big, old tree. The Yakas tree, a 25 minute walk away, was named after Dalmatian Nick Yakas, a gumdigger. The path to the visitor's centre was closed, due to the damage to the track.

We stopped at the visitor's centre and then at the lookout, on top of a tricky gravel road. You get great views over the forest, which is still vast even though years of deforestation have taken their toll. Luckily it's all protected now, you are only allowed in a very small part of it. The wooden walkways keep you from damaging the treeroots, which of course is a good thing, but it does mean you are looking at a tourist attraction, not a big tree...

At the bottom of the gravel road, I tried my hand at driving, terrifying Keiron out of his wits in the process. As most of you know, I can't see with my left eye, which is a bit of a bugger in a leftie country... I got the hang of it a bit more later on, but I think me being chief navigator and Keiron chief driver is a safer division of duties, on both counts!

We stopped at the holiday park for lunch and did another walk in the smaller Trounson Kauri park. There were lots of fallen trees (one over 600 years old), making you appreciate even more the size of them. They also grow very straight.

We then drove to the Kai Iwi lakes, very pretty freshwater lakes only separated from the coast by about half an hour. They are bright blue, used for waterskiing and very photogenic.

Back at the campsite I had a power struggle with Keiron over icecream. Naturally in the end, I won...