Rest of Northland

After all the excitement of the previous day, we were up early and headed out on our day cruise around the bay of islands. It took 6 ½ hours but we saw loads of beautiful scenery, a seal, gannets nesting, the hole in the rock – which we sailed through as well – and most importantly, dolphin spotting. We found some early on and had we had better clothes, we would have swum with them. As it was freezing, we missed out. There were at least 6 wild dolphins swimming with the boat, under, rolling about and having fun, until the 15 people dived in the water to swim with them! I think it was a little too much. We got back, grabbed fish and chips and a mussoman curry for tea and headed back to the motel – I had an early morning next day – at 5am I got up and watched United lose to Chelsea, 12 men...

The next journey was from Paihia to Maitai beach, which was towards the top of New Zealand. We didn't go to ninety mile beach, but this was pretty close. Again, another beautiful DOC site right by the beach. So we took a little walk to the beach and relaxed in the sunshine before our long journey the following day.

I think we'd had enough of heading north, so we were aiming for Whangarei again, but via the west coast, rather than back the way we'd come. So it was a twisty journey through to Kaitaia and then down the coast, but we took a shortcut, and the ferry between Kohukohu and Rawene in the Hokianga delta!. We'd stopped for an amazing lunch before the ferry at Waterline, proper homemade burger and pizza... mmm... Anyway, we got back on the coastal road and ended up in the Waipoua forest, famous I believe and most of the big trips come through here. We found out why when we came across the Kauri tree there. It was MASSIVE. Much bigger than either of us expected! Just phenomenally huge in girth. We were amazed even later when we thought back. We just expected a slightly large tree, not one that big!

We'd headed back, slightly northwards, to Whangarei as we wanted to go see the big cats of Zion animal park and The Lion Man (as seen on TV). So we aimed for the 9:30 performance and we had the place to ourselves for 2 hours! It was supposed to be a 1 ½ hour tour, but we got a little longer.. The Lion Man himself was not there, he'd been dismissed from the park about a year earlier. Somewhat surprising, but there were legal cases and what not going on against him, so something big went on.

But, we enjoyed our tour nonetheless, seeing 41 big cats including a Black Leopard (very handsome), 2 servals, a baboon, 11 tigers and 25 lions and 2 cheetahs. There were also 2 pigs and 2 ostriches and some deer. Zion, the main lion there, is the star of discovery channel adverts and the Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe film. It was very cool, but no interaction, even for the workers due to a fatality in May at the park – a tiger mauled a guy to death and was put to sleep so they could rescue at least one more guy in the cage. A shame, and no idea why the Tiger turned... But we learnt a lot and enjoyed our time..