Wednesday – Pakiri Beach to Whangarei (157kms)

After a good first nights sleep in the van…toasty warm with the winter duvet and radiator on, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast in the van before leaving the campsite at 9:50am.  Not before a last look at our beautiful view mind you!

The 24kms back to the highway 1 was beautiful, with the morning sun shining on the stunning countryside.  As with yesterdays drive it was slow going as the roads were steep and winding, however with no one else in sight we took pleasure in taking our time!

We were only on highway 1 for a couple of kilometres, before turning off for the scenic coastal drive north.  First stop was Mangawhai Heads, for a look at the sand bank and harbour…and a biccie!

Next stop was further north on the coast at Waipu Cove, overlooking Hen and Chicken Islands.  We had a walk across the rock pools to see if we could spot any life…all we found were some colourful shells.

 

We do have to award Waipu with the most impressive decorated public toilet award though….

Our journey then took us back onto highway 1 and up to Whangarei, where we stopped off at the Native Bird Recovery Centre.  We saw several of New Zealand’s wild birds recovering in their aviary, our favourite was a Tui called ‘Woof Woof’ (with the same name as our travel companion, given to us by Joseph)…so we couldn’t resist taking a snap of the pair together!

We also loved the Tui because it is a great mimic, and has a great repertoire of clicks, grunts and chuckles…when we were there it was having a great conversation about Christmas!

After lunch we drove to Abbey Caves, which were supposed to be full of glow worms, however on arrival the rugged and dark caves did not look safe, so we decided instead not to climb down into them and save our glow worm experience for Waitomo.

Next stop was our camp site for the night, Whangarei Falls Holiday Park, where after having a guided tour of the property by the lovely owners Ali and Graham (from Brummie land) we then parked up and got acquainted with our new friend, Fluff the cat – who didn’t want to leave the passenger foot-well.

 

After dinner, we hopped in the spa to warm ourselves up…it was 6 degrees outside after all!