Heading up North

Woke up from our scary night in the carpark about 7:30am. We then headed to the local toilets to get changed before we were on our way. We first headed up the south highway where we were last night. We decided to stop off at Lake Taharoa where we ate some cocopops over looking the lake. We then continued our journey up through Aranga Beach and onto Waipoua Forest. The forest was really lush and thick not to mention very windy. We turned off several short gravel roads where there were a few good look out points. One we went along for about 5kms and then climbed a small firemans lookout, to be honest the view was rubbish and we were pretty cold. The weather today was terrible, high winds and very cold. We then continued though the forest where we stopped off at a river running next to the road. The next stop in Waipoua Forest was Kuri Tree where we hiked about 100 meters to the largest tree in New Zealand - Lord of the Forest. This tree was epic!!! Tane Mahuta is where the tree was located in Waipoua Forest. We then continued on along highway 12 to Opononi where we stopped at several amazing look outs here sand junes and mountains were right next to one another, insane view! One of the look outs was called Arai-Te-Uru Recreation Reserve which over looked Hokianga Harbour near Opononi. We filled up for the first time at Opononi which was $2.26 a liter.Read more