Llew Wanders the World

After taking my leave of the wonderful Darragh family (thanks to them yet again for their kind hospitality) I went to pick up my rental car, which turned out to be a 1995 Toyota Starlet.

It isn’t pretty, but it runs well and is an unlikely target for breakins 🙂

After picking up some maps and going through all of the rental formailities, I set out into the rush-hour traffic of Auckland to try driving on the left side of the road for the first time ever. Talk about a trial by fire!

I soon discovered that it comes very naturally, and after being on the road for ten minutes or less, I felt as though I’d been doing it all my life. Which is fortunate, because I had a lot of driving to do.

The first few days of my trip were to be sent in New Zealand’s Northland, the thin peninsula north of Auckland that forms the top end of the country. (If you want to follow along with my travels on a map, rather than just reading place names, there’s a nice map of the Northland here.)

Destination number one in my tour of the Northland was Waipoua forest, the largest remaining tract of native Kauri forest in the country. In order to get there, I needed to drive north out of Auckland, then west to the west coast of the peninsula, then north again into the woods…

The road out of Auckland quickly lost its urban character, and changed from motorway bordered by buildings and billboards into a (still well maintained) two lane highway with many twists, turns and hills, surrounded by light forest comprised of pine, giant ferns and the occaiaional palm tree.

I left the main highway at the small town of Brynderwyn, headed for the Kauri coast. At this point the roads smoothed out a bit, as I drove through flat farmland, mostly used for growing kummara (a type of sweet potato.) As soon as I’d got used to driving on the nice flat roads, however, I ran into the west coast and things got a bit bumpy again.

The scenery was beautiful as I passed into the forested areas, and got even better at my first stop, the Trounson Kauri Park. The 500 some hectare park was a gift from James Trounson, a former logger who sold it to the New Zealand government at a bargain price in order to help preserve the few remaining Kauri forests. After a quick lunch, I took a walk along the loop trail in the trounson forest, and saw my first mature kauris. In addition, I also saw my first signs of kiwi… Not as good as a bird itself, or even the sound of one, but not bad all the same 🙂

After my walk through the Trounson Park, I headed off for the main attraction, the much larger Waipoua forest, home to most of the largest remaining kauri trees. My first stop in Waipoua was at the forest lookout, a former forest fire lookout, since retired and left for tourist use. The view of the forest with the mature kauris poking their heads up above the canopy, and the ocean in the background was lovely.

After enjoying the view from the lookout, I headed to the Waipoua Forest visitors centre, where I planned to stay for the night. I was directed to the camp area, where I could find my cabin. The cabins were, for my purposes at least, a great deal. Eight New Zealand Dollars got you a (small, maybe 2m by 3m) private room with electricity, but without heat or bedding.

After getting settled in my cabin, I went for a quick walk in the nearby forest. given the amount of time I had left before sunset, the park ranger suggested a walk to see some young (150 years old or so) kauri trees nearby. The track was a loop that went across the river (if you look closely at the middle of the photo, you can see the ford I used… The water wasn’t too deep or fast, but it was COOOLD on my bare feet) then across the main highway, and up a hill to the trees, as well as to a view out across the river, then back to the visitors centre along the entrance road. While the kauris were nice, the most memorable plants I saw were somewhat smaller (a tree fern unfolding its new stalks) and much smaller (two beautiful little red mushrooms, perhaps 5cm high. And yes, I know that mushrooms aren’t plants, but I like the way that sounded.)

After my walk was complete, I set out to make dinner, only to discover that while there was a communal kitchen with electric hotplates at the campsite, there were no implements, save for a lone teakettle. Thankfully the lid to it could be removed, and I had a fine supper of boiled carrots and potatoes, with an apple for desert.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and though I got going a bit late (oddly, I’ve started going to bed and getting up rather earlier since I left home, so now 9:30 constitutes late) since I’d forgotten to open the curtains in the cabin so I’d be awakend by sunrise. My first stop of the day was the Waipoua Forest’s main attraction: The Kauri Walks. These short trails take the visitor to a large stand of Kauri, including the first, second and seventh largest kauri trees in the world (which means they rank fairly high on the list of the largest trees of any kind) as well as four good sized trees growing side by side, known as the four sisters.

I actually think the second largest tree, named Te Matua Ngahere “The Father of the Forest” was the most impressive. It isn’t as tall as the larger Tane Mahuta “God of the Forest,” nor is it’s volume as great, but its girth (its trunk is 5.2m in diameter) is far greater. The trail also takes one past a good sized kauri stump, still in place, where I was happy to sit and have a rest (okay, okay, I didn’t really rest there. It was too damp and mossy to be comfortable. I just wanted my picture taken sitting on it.)

After the walk through the big trees, I headed still further north, towards Cape Reinga and the Aupouri peninsula, the tip of which is New Zealand’s northernmost point.

The drive was an exhausting one, what with more of the twisting, hilly roads, but also with still more of the beautiful hilly pastoral countryside that New Zealand’s famous for.

I had a few nice breaks in the drive, the first coming just north of the exit of the forest, where I took a lovely walk in the Waiotemarama gorge. Sadly I didn’t have time to do the full walk, since I had to catch a ferry, but I did manage to get to its highlight, the a 20m high waterfall.

The second break from driving came when I caught the ferry across Hokianga Harbour, from the tiny town of Rawene. It was shortly after this point that I received visual evidence confirming one of my thoughts about New Zealand driving. It’s not that New Zealand drivers are insane (as had been suggested to me by several people in Auckland) it’s just that they all drive at or slightly above the posted speed limit, whatever that happens to be. Now normally (in North America at least) this would be quite reasonable. In New Zealand, however, there are a few sort of “blanket” speed limits: 50km/h in urban areas, 70km/h through small towns/suburbs and 100km/h everywhere else. These seem to be applied with no thought to the actual nature of the road. Whether driving on a straight, flat section of six lane divided highway, or a hilly, twisting mountain road that may or may not be paved, the speed limit is still… You guessed it, 100km/h. Evidence supporting this is found here.

Worries about speed limits aside, the trip north continued to be uneventful (if a drive with such beautiful forest and hills throughout can properly be called uneventful.) My second to last stop before heading up to Cape Reinga was in Kaitata, right near the base of the Aupouri Peninsula. Here I filled up with gas (prices here are around 1.20 per litre, so roughly 15% greater than in Canada after currency conversions) and headed north for the 100km drive up the peninsula. On the way up, I passed The Ancient Kauri Kingdom, a workshop where furniture and other items are made from 40,000 year old preserved Kauri trees that have been pulled up out of the while it is being farmed. The largest of these ancient Kauris was turned into a staircase that leads up to the second floor of the shop. My final stop on the way north was a quick one near the beginning of Ninety Mile Beach. While the beach isn’t quite 90 miles, it gets pretty close, covering almost the full length of the western side of the 116km long peninsula. Many people drive up the damp, hard packed sand of the beach to Cape Reinga, but my rental car agreement prohibited beach driving, so I had to stick to the road.

Speaking of prohibitions in my rental car agreement, it was only after arriving at Cape Reinga that I realized I wasn’t supposed to have taken my car on the final 20km of unpaved road that led to the Cape. I’d sort of suspected that this might be the case, but I didn’t have the agreement handy, and the fellow at the agency had told me I could walk the portion of the road that was “very rough” and prohibited, so when I arrived at the beginning of the 20km unpaved section, I presumed he couldn’t have meant the whole of it. (To save you from the stress of worrying about me destroying and having to pay for the car while you read the next few paragraphs, I’ll let you know now that I got to the Cape and back just fine. Indeed, a road I’d driven on earlier in the day was far worse.)

So… We’d just arrived at Cape Reinga, New Zealand’s Second Northernmost Point. Yes, second. The inaccessible North Cape just to the east is actually a bit further north, but Cape Reinga really OUGHT to be the northernmost, just beacause of the way it looks.

One thing that really impresses me about driving as a visitor to New Zealand is the quality of the signage. Virtually every tourist attraction one would find in a guidebook, whether major or minor, along with many many hotels, hostels and restaurants is well and clearly marked, with lots of advance warning, then another sign at the actual exit from the main road, then another sign at the first turn, then another one at the actual entrance to the facility. Where this falls down, however, is that they often fail to include important information like “the trail from the car park to Cape Reinga is closed for the next month while upgrade it.” Since there was no construction work going on at the time (indeed, I was the only one at the cape when I arrived, some 2 hours before sunset), and since it was clear there was no danger from or to the partially completed works I headed down the short path anyway.

And was amply rewarded. The Cape Reinga lighthouse really does look like the last human construction for thousands of kilometres. The maori believe that the cape itself is the place where the spirits of the dead leave the Earth, and it fits this image as well (the actual location of departure is down the roots of a pohutukawa tree that you can just see near the end of the cape in the photo below.) With the waves crashing together at this meeting place of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea, along with the precipitous drop to the water and rocks below, Cape Reinga really does feel like the End of the Earth. The weather helped to create this impression too. While an awful lot of scenic areas are at their best under sunny skies, or at least with just a few clouds around, the drab, windy day on the Cape was just right I think.

As I was returning up the trail, a Maori family arrived in the car park and headed down themselves. Before they left, I mentioned that I planned to take a quick hike down the coastal walkway, the trail that follows the coast south from Cape Reinga to the North end of Ninety Mile Beach. As I turned around after my thoroughly enjoyable 45 minute walk, with the last of the sun dipping below the horizon, I realized I should have told them I didn’t plan to go TOO far, and that I had a flashlight with me in case I didn’t get back before twilight had faded into night. This led to my calling the Department of Conservation when I arrived at my hostel for the night, just to make sure no one was out looking me.

As I settled into my bed in the hostel (a wonderfully quiet place on a working dairy farm well off the main road… Myself and an Israeli who arrived shortly before were the first guests in four days) I started planning for the next day. I wished I could have taken a walk on the big coastal dunes (some of which are very large indeed, and others of which are made of white sand) at the north end of Ninety Mile Beach, but wasn’t too keen on driving the 79km (including that “treacherous” last 20) north again.

In the morning, I decided that I’d have to miss out on the dunes, but that I did have time to visit Rarawa Beach, a beautiful white silica sand beach on the east coast of the peninsula (the sand at Rarawa is so soft and fine it feels almost like flour in your hands) as well as another section of Ninety Mile Beach. The wind on the beaches was incredible, and led to all kinds of amazing sand drifts and intersting features on the dunes near the back of the cbeach.

After my walks along the beach, as well as up a small hill to get a look at NMB from the above, I headed south towards the Bay of Islands (BOI), purportedly home to some of New Zealand’s finest coastal scenery.

Much of the drive was similar to what I’d experienced on previous days, but the side road that led out to Whangaroa and Matauri Bay was special. Despite the generally cloudy weather, the views from the high points on the drive were truly spectacular. Any one of the three or four of them would have been worth the drive, and the walk along the shorline, surrounded by crashing waves and rugged volcanic coastline was, if anything, even better.

Eventually, despite my desire to stop every five minutes and admire the views, take photos and so on, I made it back on to the main road and headed towards Pahia, at the heart of the BOI. Along the way, I stopped at a couple of roadside stands to pick up some locally grown fruits and vegetables. This is another one of the joys of having a car in New Zealand. Fruits and vegetables are often still a bit pricey here in supermarkets, but by stopping at these little stands, I managed to pick up a HUGE bag of delicious (if not pretty) oranges and a good sized head of broccoli for four and one dollars respectively. The stands are usually unattended, and just have the produce left out for prospective customers to pick through and pay for by dropping their coins into a nearby can.

After making my food purchases, I carried on towards Pahia and, at long last, managed to pick up my first hitchhiker. Since I plan to do a fair bit of hitching when I hit the South Island, I’d vowed when I left Auckland that I’d pick up pretty much anyone looking for a ride. I’d heard there weren’t all that many hitchers in the Northland winter, but was still surprised it’d taken this long. As it turned out, the fellow, a Maori named Hori, only needed a ride to the next town, some 5 minutes away, but I was happy to have someone to talk to (radio reception isn’t super in New Zealand, and the quiet rattle of the extra brake light was getting a bit annoying.)

Eventually I reached Pahia, and before even finding a place to stay, made my way to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. It was here, in Waitangi, just across the river of the same name from Pahia that the Maori and British signed a treaty whereby the British guaranteed the Maori their land and fisheries and agreed to have the British as their “protectors” from other European nations. This treaty formed the platform on which New Zealand became an independent state in 1840.

Aside from the spot where the treaty was signed (marked by a flagstaff bearing the New Zealand, United Maori Tribes and British Flags) the grounds also include the house belonging to James Busby (the first British Resident in New Zealand, one of the principal arcchitects of the Treaty) where the documents were drawn up, a Maori meeting house or Whare, and one of the largest existing Maori war canoes, named Ngatokimatawhaorua. Both of these last two were constructed in 1940 to mark the country’s 100th anniversary.

With dusk approaching, I headed to my hostel to sleep for the night, as well as to cook a dinner with the tasty produce I’d bought earlier (a spicy stir fried mixture of broccoli and carrots with lots of orange zest and juice.)

The next day I’d planned to take another quick visit to the Treaty Grounds to enjoy a walk along the coastline of the bay, as well as to check out the renowned coastal scenery of the region.

The coastal walk was nice, but the real highlight of my second visit to Waitiangi was watching a group of boys all belonging to the same Marae (very roughly, a Marae is a meeting place for Maori communities, and usually includes a meeting house and an open space in front, among other features.) All the boys of the Marae, young and old, had been building and learning how to properly handle their own waka (canoe) and had come here to take a look at and pay their respects to the mother of them all. They did this by performing a haka (Maori for “dance,” though it’s often used to refer to war dances) in beside Ngatokimatawhaorua in its shelter.

After my visit to Waitiangi, it quickly became apparent, that either the lauded scenery of the BOI didn’t exist, or was only accessible by boat. Given the spectacular stuff I’d seen earlier, and the fact that I had another (supposedly similar) scenic drive later in the day, I wasn’t TOO disappointed. I left Pahia and took a car ferry across the bay to the town of Russell, the departure point for the abovenoted drive. Before setting out, however, I took a walk up Flagstaff Hill, the site of a flagstaff (imagine that) that had been chopped down by a Maori chief three times as a symbol of his resistance to the British presence in the islands. This action precipitated fierce fighting between the British and some of the Maori tribes in this region.

Flagstaff Hill also provided a view out over the Bay of Islands that, while nice, didn’t come close to what I’d seen the day before. Or, as it turned out, later that day. The views on the coastal drive from Russell back to the main highway were almost as good as those of the day before, and the walks around the little bays (as well as the weather) were superior. Once again, I found myself wanting to stop every five minutes, especially when I kept passing backpackers (hostels) in beautiful, isolated settings along the way.

Eventually I did make it back to the main road, and continued south towards Whangerei. As I was getting close, I noticed a rugby pitch with some coloured jerseys on it… With a bit of backtracking, I found my way to the Hikurangi sports park. I arrived in time to catch the last few minutes of a kids (probably about 10 years old) game. I was so enthralled by the spectacle, I didn’t even remember to take any pictures. Jim, my coach from back home, would have been jealous if he’d seen these kids play. Eighteen, even many twenty-some year olds in Canada don’t play as sound a game of rugby as these children (boys and girls both) did. They never threw the ball away in contact, always remained in their proper positions on the field, very regularly worked hard to present the ball well for their teammates after being tackled, and virtually never over-committed to their rucks and mauls well.

While I didn’t get any photos of the game itself, I did manage to catch the Hikurangi team doing their haka after the match.

I also managed to have a post-game chat with a few of the club members and learned that this game was the final event in a two day old-boys (35 and up) tournament. I’d wished I got to see more of the games, but was still happy to have been part of the post-tournament celebration, and to have seen the inside of their club house, one that would make almost any Ontario team green with envy.

After many stops, I finally did get to Whangarei, where I took a quick drive through town before heading to the pretty Whangarei Falls. A volunteer at the car park also told me how to get to the Abby Caves. I’d planned to take a (very careful) trip into these undeveloped caverns on my own, but had had little luck finding them on any maps.

When I arrived at the cave site, I followed a well marked trail down to the entrance of the first of the three, the Organ Cave. This entrance had a small river flowing into it, and since I had no rubber boots, I gave it a miss. The second cave, middle cave, looked a bit more inviting. I slowly went in, with only my hand (or more accurately mouth)-held flashlight, doing my best to keep my feet dry by working my way along the sides of the walls.

I’d vowed to not go far beyond where I could see the light of the entrance, so I didn’t go very far in, but it was, nonetheless impressive. Most of the cave formations (stalactites, stalagmites and other ornaments made by the slow dripping of water with minerals in solution) had, sadly, been damaged or stopped from growing by previous explorers, but there were, nonetheless, some pretty, untouched small stalactites high up on the ceiling above.

Also up on the ceiling were a New Zealand peculiarity: Glow Worms. Glow worms are actually insect (moth I think?) larvae, and exhibit a green bioluminescence that makes for a vrey pretty sight when there are many around and you turn off your light.

I was sitting on a small ledge just above the wet cave floor, admiring the cave’s scenery when I heard another set of footsteps on its way towards me. As it turned out, it was Steve, a Kiwi from Whangarei who was exploring the caves for his second time, and knew a bit more about them. With his company, knowledge and maps of the caves, I felt much more comfortable heading deeper in. I led the way through a small passage that Steve hadn’t explored yet, but we suspected led to another exit to the cave. As it turned out it did. It was a little mucky, and my boots got a bit wet, but it was well worth it, both for the fun of squeezing along the passages, and for the close-up views of some glow worms it provided. Later I went back and went through the full (300m or so) length of Middle Cave, including a safe but tough climb out at the far end.

Steve and I also ventured a short way into Ivy Cave, which featured a small underground waterfall, and several different vertical levels (we didn’t make it far into these, as they required some real rock-climbing type work which we weren’t equipped to tackle safely.)

Eventually Steve and I parted ways, and I ended this, probably my fullest day so far in New Zealand with the two-hour drive from Whangarei back to Auckland where I was kindly received yet again by the Darraghs. A load of laundry (I’d made a real mess of my clothes in the cave) and a bite to eat later I headed off to sleep in preparation for the next step in my North Island journey the following morning: A trip to the geothermal areas of Rotorua.

P.S. I note now that I’ve gone kind of nuts with the photos on this installment. Not to mention the text. Given that this entry covers only four days, I may have to do something about this…

Tags: New Zealand

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 12th, 2004 at 3:06 am and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.