My first stop after leaving Auckland was the Waipu caves. It was muddy and very wet in there! It was cool to explore the cave, but the best part was the glow worms! You just turn off your light and look up and there are hundreds of little points of light glowing on the top of the cave.  

I stayed one night in Whangarei (in Maori the WH makes an F sound) at a slightly dingy hostel, then headed out to the Bay of Islands. I drove a crazy curvy road all along the coast to get there — such a beautiful drive but a bit scary given that it was only my second day of driving on the left side of the road. I did ok 🙂 My guidebook recommended a stop at Elliot Bay and WOW. Such a lovely beach, and I was the only one there. 

My accommodation for the night was in a tiny town called Russell. When I arrived at my hostel, it turned out I was the only guest and I ended up chatting with the owner for most of the evening. He was an 83 year old Kiwi man named Ron, and he told me amazing stories about New Zealand’s history! Did you know that American soldiers were in New Zealand during WWII? Ron remembered the relief everyone felt when they arrived — “we didn’t have to be scared anymore.” I did a bit of exploring around Russell (not much to do in a town of 816 people) and then headed to the Aroha Island Kiwi Preserve where I was hoping to see a kiwi!

Kiwi are flightless birds that are native to New Zealand. They are mostly nocturnal and they have nostrils at the end of their long beaks. They poke their beaks into the ground to find insects, and they also eat fruit. The kiwi preserve turned out to be a bit different from what I was expecting. It was more of a protected area than a kiwi preserve. The kiwi could come and go freely from there, and there were only two kiwi living there when I arrived. I braved the cold and a big thunderstorm to sit outside in the dark for three hours watching for kiwi. In the end, I heard one quite close to me, but I didn’t get to see it. A kiwi’s call sounds really cool – you can hear it here. You have to imagine hearing it in the middle of a forest, in the dark, during a thunderstorm 😀

Rainbow Falls was on my way to my next stop, so I made a stop there. Beautiful! The sun even came out for a few minutes and I got to see the rainbow! I spent most of the day in the virgin Waipoua Forest. This forest has lots of native Kauri trees. Kauri trees can be HUGE. They can grow to be over 50 meters tall and their trunks can have girths of 16 meters. When people first arrived in New Zealand, it had many Kauri forests like this one, but most of the giant trees were cut down for timber. I hiked to the Four Sisters, Te Mauta Ngahere, Yakas, and Tane Mahuta, all Kauri trees. Tane Mahuta is the largest Kauri tree and more than 1250 years old. I was really impressed with the protections the Department of Conservation had in place to protect the trees. The trails around the trees are elevated boardwalks designed to protect the sensitive roots, and when you enter the forest, you have to clean your shoes to protect against Kauri dieback disease.

I spent one night in Omapere, then headed back to Auckland. I stopped at the expensive but cool Kauri museum on my way. I really liked the displays of Kauri gum, which is a resin like amber. It can be collected from the ground and also by tapping the trees to get them to release it. There was a whole industry in Kauri gum. 

I really liked traveling in the Northland. It was beautiful and peaceful, and the Kiwis there were so friendly (the people, not the birds!)