Whananaki South

We packed the van (we put our two backpacks in) and were ready to go.

Kim, from Australia, was in Auckland for her nana's (grandma's) funeral. A family friends of hers, Les and Keith, also welcomed us in with open arms. Les is practical, hillarious and super blunt. It was settled, we were staying for tea. By tea, kiwi's mean dinner. Huh? They shared all the must-sees of New Zealand. And, we slept our first night in our van, in the safety of their driveway =). It was much more comfortable than expected, especially the duvet!

The following day, Leslie drove us to some nearby sights. We drove around Lake Pupuke, a volcanic crater lake, surrounded by rich houses and the city's rowing club. We drove to the top of Mt Victoria (another volcano), and up a hill with old bunkers. The end of the road was the Devonport Naval base before heading back home.

After our unexpected sidestop with Les and Keith, we set off North into the countryside. We stopped in Puhoi, an old settler village. Here Bohemian people from Czech Republic settled, at the time part of the Austrian empire. They travelled via Hamburg to the North Sea, took a steam boat to England, sailed for 172 days to NZ and had to canoe two hours to get to their new home! As incentive, they received 40 acres per adult and 20 acres per child. They lived off the land and were very creative in making (and repairing) their tools. Metal parts were hard to come by (or very expensive). It was a luxury to get an iron pot to cook on the stove, although they were used to those "luxuries" back home. The people running the museum were all volunteers, and some were, or were married to, descendents of those first settlers. In town we still saw the old general store, the fire hall and the convent/school.

The road North is rolling and very green. We saw lots of sheep, but even more cows. The country is slowly switching over to cattle now that they have started irrigating the land. There were nice viewpoints overlooking the ocean. On the minor road we saw two hawks and lots of bunnies. It was winding left and right, over narrow bridges, up and down towards the ocean. There were no other destination so it was very peaceful. We found a grassy field near some public toilets in Whananaki. And we watched an amazing sunset over the river delta from the back of the van. Our favourite campsite for some time!

The following morning, we explored down by the shore. It was nice to wade into the cool, salty water. There were some snails, small crabs, tiny fish and, when we looked closer, starfish! They were everywhere, probably 3-4cm across, and slowly crawling over the bottom. What a great first campsite! If this was a sign of things to come, this trip was going to be fantastic!Read more