January 16th, 2011 (Day 2)

Woke up at 6 in the morning, made coffee, ate a couple sour plums and some trail mix. Dave and I left the campsite around 8 or 9am and started driving to west coast to see what the other side of the north island looked like. A couple hours into the drive we stopped to take a nap. Dave chose a beautiful little spot on the top of a hill, overlooking farmland and the ocean. He slept for all of 20 minutes and I woke him up so we could get movin again.

On the way we drive through ________________ National forest, which was AMAZING. There are a few types of trees that blow my mind; the Kauri trees and the fern trees. Kauri’s are a massive native tree. As they grow, their trunks twist, making them extremely strong. A couple hundred years ago England logged most of the large trees completely, but in this particular forest there is one Kauri tree that has remained since 2000 BC. This beast stands 150 feet tall and 30 feet wide. I took photos, but nothing really captures the massive scale of this tree. Also, we happened to be passing through on a busy summer weekend and the place was crawling with tourists, so we were a bit eager to move on.

We drove to the West Coast near our campsite at _____________________ and stopped, have a couple beers at a picnic table. We watched the kids jump off the pier into the water and look at the giant sand dunes across the bay, which had no footprints on them at all and made me wonder if people explore there at all. We drove a couple miles down the road to, Opononi Beach Holiday Park. It was a cute little campground built into a hill overlooking the beach. We parked the van in a sweet shady spot and realize we are out of beer, so we leave to take a trip to a small grocery store nearby, pick up some beer and head back to the campsite. Our spot is still there too! Dave made a yummy dinner with salad and veggies with a bit of pasta while I showered and we watched the coast from our shady spot on the campsite. After dinner, we walked down the beach and found a log to sit on, sip our beers, talk and watch the sun set over the sand dunes. Went to bed around 10pm on our little twin mattress in the van.