The view of Auckland from the top of Mt. Eden, which just happens to be one of the volcanoes that surround the city.
Kai lwa lake in the Tarohoa Domain, another nice campsite. That is our Subaru directly below.
Tane Mahuta "Lord of the Forest", the tallest-biggest kauri tree.
The view looking down at one of the oldest towns in New
Zealand, Omapere, and the bay where it sits.
The moment you have been waiting for this is Deep Purple, our new ride. She's a Highway Star!
After a relaxing 14 hour flight from Vancouver to Auckland, we arrived refreshed and eager to start our search from a camper-van. We rented a car for the first 3 days, bought a cellphone and a gps, setup camp at Ambury Regional Park, in Mangere Bridge just south of Auckland city, and started scouring the internet, on backpacker sites, for a cheap van which we could buy or convert ourselves. By building a platform about 2 ft off the floor and installing a mattress to sleep on you gain lots of storage space under the bed and yes, a solid roof over our head if the weather turned bad. Unfortunately this didn't happen...for us. It is the beginning of high season here and most of the good vans were sold when we were looking and those that were left, in our price range-up to $4500, where crap to say the least. One of the rangers at Ambury R.P. sold us her Subaru Legacy for $1500.00NZ a good price, not the best on gas however(she gets about 35 mpg/9 litres per 100 km) but we were off and running. A station-wagon!!!not as hip as a van or as fun as a bike but "Deep Purple" will be home for the next 3 months. We can sleep in it if we have to and as we are finding out you can carry a whole lot of STUFF.
Stuff here is priced quite weirdly compared to Canada, somethings are way more expensive and some are cheaper. For example, a average can of WD40 in Canada is $3.50 a can and here it is $16.50NZ but then again a one burner campstove here cost us $18.00NZ and when we looked at them in Halifax they were about $30.00 to $40.00, groceries are a bit more expensive here and gas averages about $2.11NZ. Diesel is $1.50 but when you drive a diesel vehicle there is a fuel tax of $55 per 1000 km. The NZ $ is about .88 Canadian right now.
While we stayed at Ambury R.P.(which happens to be a working farm)we drove around Auckland a bit, visiting the waterfront and taking a walk up Mt Eden, which is one of the many small volcanoes that you can see in the area. But the highlight and a must see in New Zealand was a sheepshearing. We timed our stay at the park just right, as they where shearing their 500-600 sheep. Wow, those shearers could go! A young mans job and terribly hard on the back, those guys would shear up to 300 sheep a day, taking around a minute to shear one, and at $2-$3 a sheep I guess it's pretty good money, like I said...as long as your back holds out. Ken really enjoyed our stay at the park, making friends with the pigs, turkeys, chickens, cows and the sheep.
So after 5 days looking for and setting up our wheels we started north of Auckland to explore the 'Far North', as they call it, all the way to Cape Reinga at the tip. We decided to travel up the west coast of New Zealand and by talking to locals along the way found out a few beautifully scenic places we had to visit. We hiked Tokatoka Peak, the only volcanic core in the Southern Hemisphere, which was formed when one of the many volcanoes down here actually blew it's sides off instead of irrupting up and out. At only 179 metres it was not very tall but we still had a great view of the surrounding farmland and river. On our hike to the top we met a mother and daughter who gave us a great tip, to stop in at the Kai Lwi Lakes to camp for the night. This park had several fresh water lakes just a few kilometres from the sea, and from the hill behind our camp we could actually see the Tasman Sea off in the distance.
North of the Kai Iwi Lakes is the Waipoua Forest home to the very few remaining kauri trees. These kauri trees have to be seen to be believed, some of the trees still standing are over 4000 years old. The biggest tree, Te Matua Ngahere, measuring over 16 metres in girth and close to 30 metres in height. The size and age of these trees was mind boggling to us. Many of the huge trees were found under ground in bogs(these trees were actually over 30,000 years buried underground)they were then dug up, cut and sent to England along with the sap that they tapped and used in building materials. I really can't start to explain these trees, please google them and check them out yourself.
We once again stepped out of the box and did something we don't usually do and that is take a bus tour. Parking Deep Purple in a campsite at Ahipara Beach we jumped on a bus which drove us up the 90 mile beach to Cape Reinga stopping several times along the way to enjoy the sites including surfing on the sand dunes, a picnic at Tapotupotue Bay, the joining of the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea at the tip and almost the best of all we stopped for an ice cream cone at a little store that had the best of the best ice cream.
After reaching the tip of the North Island we had no where to go but down so we turned around and started down the East coast where the coastline is a lot more dramatic than that on the West and has an abundance of campgrounds on and around the many beaches. We were in constant awe of the beauty rounding every corner all the way back down to Auckland. Only one night was too stormy to camp or sleep in the back of Deep Purple so we ended up getting a cabin.
Now back in Auckland at Ambury R.P. we are regrouping, restocking and getting ready to head south to the Coromandel Peninsula. Can't wait, new road!
