The Far North

As we left The Bay of Islands, the thick fog which had blanketed the bay lifted to a breautiful day. The drive up the coast to Mangonui was along a lovely coastline, which was very quiet. The town of Mangonui, fabled for its fish and chips and architecture from the whaling days, was a charming harbour village. We were too early for the fish and chips, but enjoyed great coffee there.

Mangonui Harbour is an arm of Doubtless Bay which was stunningly beautiful, and from there we drove up a long skinny peninsula to Cape Reinga, at the most northerly tip of NZ. We saw a lot of Azure Kingfishers on this road.

On the way we stopped at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom at Awanui, where there is a staircase carved from an ancient Kauri Tree, and a display of furniture and carvings. The Cape Reinga lighthouse is solar powered, only 50w according to the sign, the only solar powered lighthouse we have ever seen. How a light of that power can be effective is amazing, but the sign there said that it can be seen for 19 miles. It stands where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. We saw it on a gloriously calm day, but we imagine the weather can be frightful in this totally exposed location. It's also unusual in that you approach the lighthouse from above it! (See photo.)

Massive landscaping was being undertaken at the Cape. There must be a lot of visitors here in Summer!

The west side of the peninsula leading up to Cape Reinga is Ninety Mile Beach. Vehicles are allowed on this beach but we didn't see any, and we note that that the speed limit is posted at 100km/hr. Reports are that many vehicles come to grief on this beach, and we could see why. At high tide it would be impassable, and at low tides, just plain dangerous due to soft sand and extreme isolation. Franky, we are not supporters of vehicles being allowed to drive along pristine beaches.

Near the southern end of Ninety Mile Beach, we had a look at one of the few road accesses to this beach, at Waipapakauri. This access point was seriously degraded and impassable except for high clearance 4WDs. Most of the damage here was probably done by recent storms.

After this trip, we stayed the night at Kaitaia, then set out heading south though the Kauri forests. The highlight of the day's driving was the ferry trip across Hokianga Harbour from Kohukohu to Rawene (photo), both very picturesque towns, which although small, appear to be thriving. The town of Oponomi is also beautiful, being
set at the heads of Hokianga Harbour and characterised by spectacular sand dunes. It was very quiet there with only locals about.

The road was twisty and slow as we passed through the Waipoua Forest, where the oldest known living Kauri tree is to be found (photo).

Beyond the forests, we had a good walk along Bayley's Beach, which was wild and windy, as our last call for the day. The town here is cute and funky, but we noticed a massive development taking place on the headland which will not help this particular ambience.

The West Coast, down which we are travelling, is not on the tourist trail, so it's very quiet and enjoyable, especially at this time of year. The tiny towns along the beach are replete with shacks and huts with only the occasional well built house. Locals obviously make good use of this coastline, and are probably grateful that it
is not too popular with tourists. Serious erosion of the dunes is a problem everywhere, a problem which is seemingly made worse by beach shacks being built too close to the edge.

We pulled in for the night at Dargaville.