Ross and Wyn Davies Travel Blog

Tuesday was more of the overcast and cloudy weather, but at least it was calm. We wanted to make the most of the morning while we had the car. We headed to the A H Reed Kauri Park. This is a remnant kauri and totara forest on the edge of town. There is a 23m high waterfall at the top end, and a very cool boardwalk high up in the forest canopy. From memory the poles the boardwalk is on are 11m high. We did a loop around what is a lovely little forest. From there we carried on to see the Whangarei Falls, also on the edge of the city. Continue reading →

Some rubbish/skip truck clanged noisily around Whangarei at about 5:30am on Monday morning. Not that we are complaining – after all we had parked in a carpark downtown. We were up early thinking we’d need to move on somewhere. I discovered that there was a second car park further down the basin; this one looked more the motorhome hangout. There were a couple of buses parked up there, and we soon joined them with Suzi. Already it was quieter here, beside the marina. Continue reading →

Wandering on to Whangarei

Sunday was overcast with showers, but was calm and warm enough. We took our time packing up and getting out on the road. We decided to drive separately to Whangarei which was only about 20 minutes up the road. We parked Suzi up at the info centre on the way into the city and took the car downtown. We had a look around the harbour basin area but didn’t see many motorhomes. A great cafe there had good coffee and big yummy muffins. We had a wander around the shops – mostly tourist/gallery sorts of places. A short drive took us up to the Parihaka lookout which gave us a great view of the city and a good orientation to things. Eventually we headed back and retrieved Suzi and parked up in the main harbour basin car park. We ended up there on our own and a bit conspicuous. But it was safe enough.

Friday dawned lovely at our road-side parking spot at the Matakoe Kauri museum. It was clear and calm and colder – only about 8 degrees. It was going to be a nice day. We wanted to make the most of it so we were back into the museum soon after it opened at 9am. We checked out the kauri gum collection and then Wyn made a retreat to the coffee shop down the road while I went to take a picture of the tree outlines before joining her. We had a look through the old post office outside the museum; it’s sad how many of the things in it we are familiar with. Wyn had worked in telephone exchanges and used equipment like in the museum (she says I can’t say that – it was similar but newer :-)). Continue reading →

As is our custom we took a while getting going on Thursday. We polished up ourselves a bit, and filled up with water and dumped our waste in readiness for the next few days. We needed fuel for Suzi and so headed for the BP truck stop in Dargaville. We drove along the road and didn’t see it. So we turned around – no mean feat – and drove back and still couldn’t find it. We parked up and unhitched the car and continued our search. Eventually we learnt that the truck stop had been removed which explained our fruitless search. We headed for the BP service station instead and managed to sidle up to the diesel pump. Continue reading →

Wednesday morning in Kellys Bay was lovely. Not sunny but calm and warm. We took our time packing up and the morning was mostly gone by the time we were gone. Towing the car again we headed back up the Poutu Peninsula. At Te Kopuru we diverted to Glinks Gully which is on the big long beach on the west coast. The road down to the settlement was interesting; it was sealed but narrow and the last part was steeply down. We had a look at the beach. A sign said “Big Waves Strong Currents Offshore Holes” or something equally discouraging. Continue reading →

Yesterday (Tuesday) started out well. The sky was clear and the sun was out and the harbour was calm. This was the day we’d planned on doing the walk to the Poutu lighthouse. We’d been watching the weather forecasts and this had looked like the day. We were soon up and going – the walk is best done at low tide and the tides were just right as well. Clouds did start building up through the morning but the weather turned out good enough. We were away in the car by 9.30am for the last 20kms of unsealed road to Pouto Point which is a small settlement crammed onto the end of the ridge overlooking the entrance to Kaipara Harbour. Continue reading →

Monday was washing day. It started out cloudy with showers of rain, but the showers got less and there was a bit of a breeze. We fired up the old agitator washing machine in the laundry shed. It’s great to see these still going. I remember when we had an agitator washer in the laundry at the family motels in the 1970s how the foreign tourists regarded it as a quaint relic – albeit in working order. Now thirty years on we regard them as a quaint relic – and still in working order. They are great machines – simple and effective. So, feeling historic we passed a few hours washing and rinsing. Continue reading →

Sunday was moving on day. We were heading for the Kaipara Harbour – not far south. We wanted to head on down the peninsula-which-doesn’t-seem-to-have-a-name towards Poutu. We had a few options for parking up, and we weren’t sure exactly where we’d end up. So begin the best days. Continue reading →

Today we’re heading south again. We’re currently having lunch at the lookout at the Dargaville Museum. From here we’ll go down the peninsula towards Poutu Point. We’ll probably stay at Kellys Beach and go to Poutu Point from there – maybe Tuesday. On the way back to here we’ll probably stop at Glinks Gully. That’s the plans anyway. We’re not sure whether we’ll have mobile reception for the next few days. The plan is to return to Dargaville in about 4 days or so. It sort of depends on the weather.

We had a bit of a sleep in on Saturday – but it was Saturday after all. It was a misty sort of morning; more like low cloud I guess. But it was calm at least – no wind is good. And warm enough, 18 degrees by 11am. We planned on a day of sightseeing, so packed our lunch and loaded up the car with parkas and stuff and headed off. We went north again, back to visit the Waipoua Forest visitor centre. It looks like an old Forestry Service settlement. The visitor centre had some interesting photos of the kauri extraction in the early days. On the way there we’d taken a side road to the ‘Lookout’. They probably meant look out for the road – it’s a shocker. Continue reading →

It was a wet morning in Opononi on Friday, but warm enough – 14 degrees outside at 7.30am. I caught up with the blog and got that posted while we still had phone coverage. We eventually got on the road by 11am, and drove separately down the road to the dump station a couple of kms south at the info centre. We carried on a couple more kms to the side road to South Head and repeated the walk we’d made the previous evening. It was still windy but we managed to time it between showers. Continue reading →

Today (Friday) has been wet so far – we woke to rain on the roof. It is still warm rain through, 14.4 degrees outside at 7.30am. we’re moving on today, and hoping the rain will ease. We’ve seen some blue sky already, although it’s raining again at 11am.  We’ll head south through the Waipoua Forest and check out the kauri tree walks. We’re not aiming far today, maybe only as far as Aranga where we might stay a couple of nights. Then we’ll head south again, towards Dargaville and Poutu Point.

Thursday (yesterday) was another breezy/windy day but warm enough – 15.5 degrees outside before 8am. It was overcast, with patches of blue that disappeared as the day went on. We worked out the things we wanted to see, and took the car for some exploring. We started along the road to Omapere, the town closer to the heads that Opononi runs into – it’s now just one long strip of coastal settlement. The shop there had 2/3rds of our mail that we’d had sent on. We came back towards Opononi and stopped at the info place. Here they had a bit of a museum and some old films of the Opo phenomenon. Continue reading →

Wednesday 12 August dawned calm and cool – only 10 degrees outside for a start. We wouldn’t have been able to remember to the last day we had calm, but it must have been a while. It was clear with clouds threatening. The only sounds were again from the birds; lots of pukekos, the awful sounding herons, and hens wandering around. Felix had promised a local truck driver that he’d be OK to turn in their carpark – the valley road is not conducive to turning anything much. So we had to shift before we went for the walk. Continue reading →