Today there was to be a lot less driving. Our intention was to stay at the DOC site at Raetea.

First we visited the Trounson Kauri Forest to walk through it in the daylight, even seeing & hearing a Weta insect. The trees are magnificent. We then headed North to pass through the Waipoua forest. This is another Kauri forest which had been logged years ago, leaving the larger trees intact. The large ones were too large to cut down with axe and transport. As we had already walked through the trees we did not stop at Waipoua. The road was very bendy and very hilly. The bijoux van handles like a car, so easy to do. On the last of an uphill stretch we came across a procession of old tractors, Land Rovers and Jeeps raising money for the hospice movement. The were on the final stretch of driving from the South of the South Island to the tip of the North Island. We saw them several times today.

We stopped off at the Arai-te-uru recreation reserve where there are good views of Dunes and the village of Omapere.  We then had to pass the tractors again as we headed inland. We headed on to see some scenic boulders in the sea. Didn’t realise these had to be seen at low tide, which it wasn’t. So, on to Rawene to catch a ferry. Here the tractors caught up with us and we crossed together.

Next we were going to stop at our campsite in Raetea Forest. First we went wrong, google forgot to tell us to turn off, so a 20km re-track. Then we found the road was closed, this looked like a huge  diversion, going back over the road we had re-tracked!  But the Blasdale instinct is to ignore closed roads and continue. Which we did (well, we asked someone and they said it would be open for an hour). Yes it was open, they were resurfacing. We drove over hot steaming newley laid tarmac, ie newly “sealed”.  The road was a lovely twisty dirt track road through the forest going up to a summit and down again. The cambers on the road allowed for high speed corners.

We reached our destination, only to find the site closed for winter!

Motored on to Kaitaia, filled up with fuel and then headed to a Top 10 on the Kariari Peninsular. Not such a nicely situated site as before, and the wifi was down.

Heavy rain for a few minutes just as Rosemary finished washing up.