In the morning we were pleased to learn that whatever package we had bought included breakfast every day, and for some reason we could get whatever we wanted no matter the price. I’ll take it… We headed north up the North Island over the bay bridge and realized that basically every NZ highway is a scenic one. MK stopped quite often to take pictures after reading a photography book on the plane. You have him to thank for all these great pictures. The first beach we stopped at was called Waiwera. It was a small fishing village with beautiful water and shells everywhere.

We went to an enormous museum as the first planned activity on our trip. It was the museum of the Kauri tree (pronounced like Cody) that was used by the Maori, then by the European settlers due to it’s extreme size and color, and it also leaks a sap that is a gum used to make many different things. They took down so many of the trees that are now protected. There are even swamps of these trees that are excavated that survived under ground for thousands of years.

We drove through Ruawai and stopped at a local cafe for some local coffee (MK) and beer (Me) and a panini, the most common food item, no matter what ‘type’ of restaurant you are in, they will grill you a sandwich, in the entire country. We headed north again through the forest that was just expansive and breath taking. The roads were so windy we were crawling at a snail’s pace, but it was fine because we could see so much more.

We made it up to Omapere and Opononi where we were staying and stopped in many hill top view points to see the coast, the cove, the beach across the water from us, and the forest behind us. Our hotel had a indoor/outdoor porch and view of the pier and water. We had a small dinner, dressed up in our warmest, played a round of pool to kill some time, and met up with a group for our Forest Walk.

Two Maori men, Joe and Gray, took us and a group totaling about 15 through the forest to see Tane Mahuta (169 ft high, 45 ft wide), the god of the forest, and Te Matua Ngahere (59 ft wide), the father of the forest. They are the two largest and oldest Kauri trees in NZ. The hike was beautiful and took about 4 hours. They gave us hot chocolate and sang Maori songs about the history of the trees and how important they are in the culture. It was a beautiful night.

The guides were really nice and we had a beer with them back at the hotel and talked about the Dept. of Conservation and the acts that they are working on. They are replanting Kauri trees and doing these tours on their own to educate tourists on the forest and their culture.