With the tour of the Shire completed, we still had a long day ahead. Tomorrow our focus will be on the Kauri forests. To be prepared for that we needed to head four hours north to Matakohe, two hours beyond Auckland.
On the road again!
The semi-tropical nature of the North Island was evident in the front yard trees of a farm we passed.
About an hour away from the movie set, we came upon a larger highway.
We started to see some contemporary neighbourhoods as we entered Auckland.
We’re entering the big city now!
Coming out the north side of Auckland, we run into more road works. We had been in a crush of traffic coming into the south side of the city. Now exiting the city on the north side, we see traffic backed up going into town. It was a Sunday afternoon, there must have been some major event going on.
Having left Highway 1 to head west to Matakohe, we drove through the cute little village of Paparoa.
We stayed at the Matakohe Holiday Park, a quiet seaside campsite with nice facilities.
There’s a gardener here!
Canna lilies seemed to be growing wild!.
Our morning in Matakohe started with a greeting from one of the campground’s resident dogs.
We had breakfast with the company of this friendly fellow and headed off for a day of contrasts. We started with The Kauri museum, which is a tribute to the forest industry and the products it produced and ended with a Maori-guided twilight walk through two remnant areas of kauri forest.
Grampafacts 