New Zealand, Part 8

I rented my third car for the last leg of this lil’ trip, a two and a half day scramble to the northern tip of New Zealand: Cape Reinga. Along the way, I went through the beautiful Waipoua Forest (on a very fun road). Therein I visited the Tane Matua, a giant Kauri tree – and it was impressive. As wide as an old growth redwood tree, albeit shorter, it was equally difficult to capture in a photo…

I continued up to the huge and dramatic Orongotea Bay. (Note the odd roadside pic of a missing pooch.) I made my way to Rawene (!) where I took the ferry to continue driving north. Kinda fun…

I made it to the Ahipara Holiday Park (in the small beach town of the same name), a pretty cool place to stay. Motored on the next day up to Cape Reinga, the northern most point in New Zealand…

The famous icon of Cape Reinga is the lighthouse. Actually, it’s classic and I wasn’t alone. In fact, it was a quite well-appointed tourist destination with lots of interpretive signage and very serviceable path. A breathtaking location, nonetheless I had to take the random shot of the interior of the lighthouse through the little window on the door. Could’ve stayed there for hours and explored the various trails, but I checked it out, then headed back for the long drive to Auckland Airport…

Along the way I stopped in an interesting antique store to talk with Bill, the proprietor, about samuri swords and buy a Valentine’s Day present. I decided to make little ferry boat rides a theme for my northern journey, so I headed to Paihia (actually Opua) to catch the ferry to Russell…

The Bay of Islands might be one the cooler places in New Zealand, especially if you have a boat. There was even a cruise ship parked off Paihia, so it must have some allure. It was another charming little crossing to the more charming and historical village of Russell. But I wasn’t there long…

I had my one unfortunate occurrence when I was backed into by a local. As it happened, I was backing into a spot while she was backing out from the other side of the road, and we lightly scraped bumpers. The annoying part was that she did not cop to her guilt! Hopefully, it’ll be a nothing burger, but wingnuts and insurance companies can be problematic. Fortunately, the damage to my rental car was non-existent …

I powered on to Whangarei. First pic – and the only place worth taking one – the local Art entity. The rock-bottom, cheapest place to stay on Expedia was the Grand Hotel. So, choosing the fleabag option, I shared a building with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip from their 1953 visit to New Zealand. No pix of the Thai-Indian Restaurant, just off the lobby (but which might’ve a less than desirable exit), which was the highlight of my stay there. Next morning, powering to the airport, I went over Aucklands version of the Sydney bridge, verified that OneNZ is a shit smart phone option, watched the second quarter of the Super Bowl, and got on my United non-stop to SFO…

This very last batch depicts, somewhat, the resemblance of NZ to NorCal (or at least the Santa Cruz mountains). Note pix of Auckland, etc., and the last two, near home in La Honda…