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Again it's been a week and a half since I last blogged.. I tell you, time is getting away from me faster and faster these days! OK, so what has happened since then? Lots! Here's the first few days...
I spent most of what was to be my final day in Awanui inside due to bad weather, venturing out only once to check out "Kauri Kingdom", a store selling all sorts of carvings from ancient (≈50,000 year old) kauri stumps recovered from a local swamp. The focal point was definitely the spiral staircase carved inside a 3 metre-wide Kauri trunk (possibly the only one in the world), which is used to reach the first floor of the store.
Shooting off the next morning past the pretty town and small but proud beachside community of Ahipara, I ventured south down the west coast of Northland. A few hours had passed when I came across the magnificently situated twin towns of Omapere and Opononi on the southern shore of the Hokianga Harbour - yes, pretty much every place I have visited in Northland is on the coast! I say 'magnificently situated' because of their proximity to the impressive sand dunes which lie across the clear aqua-coloured waters on the opposite side of the harbour.
I enjoyed lunch on the beach in Opononi, and then headed on my way further south, this time towards the Waipoua Kauri forest - which was proclaimed a forest sanctuary in 1952, saving it from certain destruction due to continued milling. In this dense jungle I came face-to-trunk with Te Matua Ngahere (The Father of the Forest), which is believed to have the largest diameter of any kauri tree in NZ at over 5 metres (absolutely massive!) and could also possibly be the oldest in NZ at around 2000 years old. That night I watched a resplendent sunset over Aranga beach before bunking down a little further south in Dargaville - a largish town that services the Northern Wairoa region, which is considered the "Kumara Capital" of NZ, producing two-thirds of the country's output of this sweet potato Kiwi icon.
Onwards and downwards on the Friday through more green pastures, more beaches, more of everything I've come to expect from New Zealand, stopping at Goat Island beach, near Leigh on the east coast, for a gander at the local aquatic life around this 547ha marine reserve. I was expecting to see some pretty cool fish and coral along the shoreline but it seems as though you need to go scuba diving around the actual island, 100 metres out, in order to come across these - unfortunately I had left my emergency scuba gear in my other pants pocket - the rocky beach and island were quite nice nonetheless. So after this there was not much left for me to do but head back to the place I had taken this detour from 9 days before... Auckland. This time to stay for a bit.

Photos:
1. The kauri spiral staircase
2. Ahipara coastline
3. The dunes at the "O" twins
4. That's a bloody big tree.. I'm actually standing about 10m in front of it! - Te Matua Ngahere
5. What a sight!
6. Goat Island
7. Found this odd fellow looking over someone's driveway entrance near Leigh..
8. It just goes on forever.. On the way to Auckland