The Northlands.
Owing to road closures, we opted for a long drive up the west coast to see a magnificent, 2000 year old kauri tree Tane Mahuta in the Waipua Kauri Forest but all in all, the scenery was at best average and some of the towns obviously hadn’t had the benefits of “Development Control”. We finally stopped for the night in Kawakawa to “experience” Mr. Hundertwasser’s public bogs and then pushed on to Whangerai for the Parkrun.
In Whangerai we also had lunch with Ruth who I think is a second cousin. Whangerai also has an Arts Centre built to Mr H’s designs and an amazing ball-bearing clock.
Various roads were still being repaired following Cyclone Gabrielle but as we were only after a slow meander back to Auckland, they didn’t bother us. We visited the battle site at Te Ruapekapeka where in 1845/6 Maori troops held off the British forces in the culmination of the Northern war. Our final Freedom spot at Hatfields Beach near Orewa was probably the pick of the bunch.
The campervan handover was pretty straightforward and all I will say is that with Jucy you get what you pay for.
The flight back confirmed the wisdom of shortening the outward journey by starting in Rome (although we had only been going to Melbourne then) and not surprisingly, Suse’s coat was not waiting for her in Glasgow. It was always our plan to jump onto the trusty 926 at the airport which we duly did. The jet lag has been insidious but definitely not as bad as on the way out. Suse begs to differ!
