Northlands

Am back into doing the tourist thing for the last week of my stay here. Headed north at the start of the week and am travelling with a great german lad called Thorburn who has just cycled round the south island, crazy man. He's hired a car now and both of us are enjoying sharing our travels for a while. Just as well because there are hardly any cars up here on the road to nowhere.

Have been deep into the forest to see the biggest Kauri trees in the world (in New Zealand), they are proper huge. 90 mile beach that stretches right up the coast to the top, you can hire surfboards to sand surf which looked rather crazy or just have a walk and get back into the car to drive some more. The top, Cape Reinga, miles from anywhere was a bit of a dissapointment apart from the waves out at sea caused by the different densities of the two oceans meeting and the fact that due north there is nothing but ocean until Alaska which is at the other end of the world.

We got up early and watched the sun rise over the South Pacific ocean, real tranquil until the light arrived, then the whole harbour sprang to life bith buzzing outboards and trucks arriving for the day. It gave us a good start on another beautiful sunny day exploring what tourists have to explore.