Half Around The World In 80 Days

After two days in Auckland, I rent a car to head out north into the countryside. One destination is the picturesque Bay of Islands which actually looks very much like Ireland. Here I go out for a cruise where we encounter a lovely school of dolphins, see the locally famous Hole In the Rock and maroon the cruise boat on a beach for lunch. After a cloudy morning the sun shines brightly in the afternoon and I get mildly sunburnt, something that will seem like a distant memory by the time I leave NZ.

Playful dolphins in the Bay of Islands

The Hole in the Rock, Bay of Islands, NZ

That's one way to get off the boat !

I get lucky with a friendly local bird in the Bay of Islands !!

I venture further north to Doubtless Bay, Ninety Mile Beach and Cape Reinga which is the most northerly point in NZ (almost). On the way back south to Auckland along the west coast, I pass through the Kauri National Forest. The Kauri are an ancient and unusual looking tree with wide branchless cylindrical trunks which come to an abrupt end at about 30metres and are topped with a mad looking array of branches. Much of the North Island was once covered with Kauri but the Maori and Europeans decimated the stock for ship building and construction.

Sunday October 31st sees me staying in the town of Kaitia. This is a big day in the sporting arena. First up is the conclusion of the Formula 1 Motor Racing championship where Eddie Irvine was clinging to a tenuous lead over Mika Hakkinen going into the final race in Japan. Of course history recounts that the Finn won, which was probably the fairest result. Of much more significance to the Kiwis was that New Zealand were playing France in the Rugby World Cup Semi-final in the middle of the night. For New Zealanders the only question was whether they could beat 'the frogs' by 20, 30 or 40 points. Of course they actually lost to France and the entire country plunged into national mourning. By the end of the week they would also have lost the netball world championship and the Rugby League tri-series, with Australia being the victor in all cases; NZ would appear to have reached its sporting nadir at this time.

Doubtless Bay with informative local hitchhiker Matt

Cape Reinga lighthouse in NZ far north

Fern trees which abound in northern NZ; the silver fern is the national symbol.