East Northland

18th
We were picked up from our hotel at 11am and driven out near the airport to where we were to collect our camper van. On the way we also picked up a German family, a couple and their daughter, he was an interesting fellow with a nose ring and 'BAD BOYS NEVER SLEEP' tattood around his neck and a complete skeleton hand tatood on his right hand. She, and her daughter, looked quite 'normal'... relatively!
We were shown around our van which is similar in size to the one we had in the states, we could have had a much smaller one but then you have to undo the table each night in order to make the bed and, quite frankly, I have better things to be doing with my time! Formalities over, we drove our way (on the left of the road now) cautiously about a mile to the nearest supermarket to fill up with goodies, nice to have the gear stick back on the correct side! The only thing that really disappointed in the shops was the bacon, we have bought some but it just doesn't look right!!
Our fridge full we headed to the motorway to zip north through Auckland into Northland. We were heading for Whangarei (pronounced Fangarei, and mainly called Ferengi (star trek fans will know it) by us because we kept on forgetting the name, why is it so hard to remember names in a foreign language?) about 200km up the East coast. we arrived around 5:30pm and stopped to take a walk around its well known waterfall - absolutely stunning, surrounded by a mature forest of fern trees and other NZ specialities that we don't know the names of. Local children were playing in the waterhole above the falls and having a great time. Then we found a campsite just around the corner from the falls and settled down to sort out all our bags, the beds and supper.
We found out that the sink in the bathroom was not connected properly to the water outlet hose so that water went everywhere! Not too much of a problem as we have another sink in the kitchen, just a shock for Celso when all the water started to appear out of the wall!
As night fell we found that it was getting very cold, just as well that we had asked for an extra duvet in the van!

19th
By 10am, after a breakfast of cereal (nice... have been missing that!), we headed about 20 mins out to the coast to a little town called Tutukaka (so we've now been to Titicaca and Tutukaka!) where we had booked on a boat to go snorkeling out at Poor Knights Islands, rated as 1 of the top 10 dive sites in the world by Jacques Custeau. Our large boat with 36 passengers and 4 crew on board rocked and rolled its way out to the islands in about 40min, and then we were taken through the southern hemispheres largest rock arch (the Southern Arch) into a calm bay and then round some cliffs to our dive site. As we arrived the water was boiling with fish in a feeding frenzy on the surface, two kinds of fish were feasting on krill, Blue Mao Mao and silver coloured Trevally, I've never seen anything like it. We kitted out in wet suits, snorkels, masks and flippers and got into the freezing water (some people had not paid the $10 extra for a wet suit and I don't know how they managed to get in), apparently these islands are in the EAC (part of the same one that is in finding Nemo), the East Australian Current, which then becomes the East Auckland Current, which is a warm current; but it didn't feel warm to me!
However, the cold was soon forgotton as the amazing underwater scene was revealed to us. Fish everywhere; Yellow Banded Perch; Spotted Black Groupers; evil torpedo shaped Kingfish; big silver Snapper; Blue fish; 2 spotted Demoiselles and a host of other fish. Some just seemed to float on the spot while others darted here and there, some used their fins like wings to propell themselves and others waggled their tails lazily to cruise through the water. Everywhere were 5 to 15cm tubular jellyfish with spectacular irridescent light shows going on inside their transparent bodies, and below it all was the dancing seaweed, swaying with the rythm of the waves even though it was 15m deep. Tris and I spotted a small troop of 5cm long squid that seemed to be hanging in the water but were soon darting off when a large school of Snapper approached. It was simply amazing.
The Poor Knights islands were named by Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand; the story goes (according to some historians) that he was having difficulty thinking up new names for all the new islands that he encountered; he approached these islands as he was eating french toast with jam on top for breakfast, a dish known as Poor Knights breakfast; and so he gave the islands the name 'Poor Knights'.
The islands were inhabited by a Maori tribe called the Nati Toki; they managed to acquire some pigs from the explorers and kept them on the island; it was a great trade item for their tribe and they had many visits from other tribes who would travel for up to 4 days to trade with the islanders. However, one trade visit turned out to be fateful. The chief of the Nati Toki did not like the trade and so refused to give the visiting cheif any pigs, this was a great offence and relations were bad between the tribes for years; however no attack could be made on the easily defended islands so nothing was done about the snub until 10 years later. At this time the Nati Toki chief had entered into an alliance with another tribe and he went with his warriors to help this other tribe defend its lands against invaders. Meanwhile a slave escaped from the Poor Knitghts Islands and went to the snubbed chief and told him that the islands lay undefended. The islands were attacked and all the Nati Toki (women, children and the elderly) were slaughtered, only six members of the tribe survived. When the Nati Toki cheif and his warriors returned they were so shocked and upset by what they found that they left again immediately and the islands were made Tabu, no one has lived there since. The year was 1823.
All this has meant that the islands are an example of what NZ may have looked like when the first people arrived, covered in thick forest. It is home to Tuataras, a kind of lizard that hasn't evolved (it just didn't need to) in over 220,000,000 years and has the honour of being the only 3 eyed animal! There are also giant Whettas, in the absence of predators and competition on the island they have become enormous, some weigh up to 100g, about the weight of three large mice! Apparently they prey on gheckos, whereas in other places it is the whettas and their cousins the crickets that are eaten by the lizards!
The area has been a national park for over 50 years; the pigs and all other non native species have been removed and it is now a federal offence, with a fine of up to $20000, to set foot on the island. The marine reserve is much more recent, it is only 20 years old, but the area has seen a steady increase in fish populations since the waters around the island were protected from fishing.
After we got too cold snorkeling we sat on the boat in the sun eating sandwiches, salads and fruit, and then we tried our hand at kayaking. After about 2.5 hours at the dive site the boat lifted its anchors and we went for a small explore around the island. First stop was in the Riko Riko cave, the largest sea cave in the world at 130 by 78m. Riko Riko means shimmering light as the water inside the cave is so clear that the sunlight reflects up off the water and into the cave allowing ferns to grow from the roof. This sparkling clear water is thanks to sponges and other filter feeders that live in the cave and give the area up to 70m of underwater visibility. There were amazing colours on the walls of the cave just around the water line and the acoustics were fabulous, echos went on and on and on. There have even been some concerts in here in the past, with the band on one boat and the audience in kayaks, canoes or just swimming around!
Next we skirted the island to see how fortresslike it was and we were told the story of the Nati Toki tribe, apparently they left in such a hurry that there is an amazing wealth of archeology just waiting to be discovered, but as yet noone has been given permission to go and find it!! The only people to set foot on the island were those sent to trap the non native species and they say that the Nati Toki irrigation system and wells are still fully functional - there is no fresh water on the island except for the rain so the water collection system had to be good.
We passed through a second arch which had its walls lined with sponges that were revealed in a gaudy strip of reds, yellows and oranges as the swell ebbed and flowed (photos not possible due to the shade inside the arch and the amount of swell moving the boat), then past another cave called the ray of light cave that has a beam of light shining down from the top of the island 55m above through a shaft that has opened up due to erosion. Then we whizzed, with huge spray as the boat leapt over the waves, out to the pinnacles, a series of 3 spikey rocks that have the largest gannet populations in Australasia; but I think they were all out fishing as we saw very few; then on back to shore.
A fabulous few hours, followed by a short hour drive north towards the Bay of Islands. We had a short stop of in Kawakawa to see the most famous toilets in the world, the Hundertwasser public toilets, with columns, bottle walls and amazing tiling, and then on to our camp site on the waterfront at Paihia.

20th
Our first stop today was to some glow worm caves just south of Kawakawa in some amazing limestone caves with huge formations of stalagmites and stalagtites that started forming over 2 million years ago. At the mouth of the cave where the water exited was a deep pool with a huge eel in it, in fact there are 3 eels that live there and they have been named by the guides, Elvis, Precilla and XXXXXXXX. We were lead into the cave by lantern light and then when the lights were turned out the glow worms could show their stuff. It was like looking up at the night sky with a mass of stars twinkling. The worms are actually the maggot of a fly that spends 9 months glowing and catching mosquitos to then spend a couple of weeks in a cacoon turning into its adult form, unfortunately the adult fly does not have a mouth so it mates and lays eggs and then dies of starvation! The glowing is a result of a chemical reaction between magnesium in the maggots diet and an enzyme. The worms compete for space and the damp spots within the cave; if one gets too close to another a battle ensues with the victor eating his defeated foe; and so the sparkles glisten in a spectacular way, each from its own space.
We exited the cave and then walked back over the hill top through lush forest (bush as it is called here) full of ferns and native trees and enormous rocks which were obviously once inside a cave as there were the remains of stalagtites (or stalagmites) on some but the rock that they were attached to had been turned vertical so that they now stuck out horizonatally. It was a beautiful walk, short, but taking a long time as we stopped to look at everything.
Then we started our drive across to the East coast through a landscape of rolling hills and sudden rocky outcrops. There were beautiful views across valleys and woods of mixed growth but with the tree ferns dominating. Our first view of the East coast was over a beautiful bay (Hokianga Harbour) with huge sand dunes on the far side, we stopped and ate lunch by the water and then walked along the shore picking up sea shells and fascinated by the bright blue jelly fish that were washed up everywhere. Then we continued up to the head of the bay and took a short walk up on the headland. We found a stick insect and loads of small butterflies and fantastic views back over the bay and out over the Tasman sea towards Australia.
We started to wind our way south down the East coast and shortly entered the Waipoua Forest full of tree ferns and enormous Kauri trees, it was a fantastic drive but very twisty! We stopped to visit the largest Kauri tree in NZ and also the second largest and a group called the 4 sisters, where all 4 trees seemed to share a root system. They are magnificent trees, really fat in the girth with light bark in a sort of scaley pattern that sheds to rid the trees of pests such as lichen and mosses. All the measurements here are metric whereas in the US they were imperial, so it will be interesting to convert the numbers and compare these trees to the giant redwoods and sequoia trees. The walks to and from these giant trees was through pristine forest with fantastic plants along the way - ferns galore and strange twisty trees that made spiral shapes, the fern trees (of course) and many other species completely unknown to me - fascinating.
Finally we made our way to a campsite on a conservation reserve next to another Kauri tree forest renowned for its Kiwi population. After dark we went out for a walk in the forest with our torches and were lucky enough to be only a few feet away from a screeching Kiwi that then ran across the path in front of us. Not a brilliant sighting in our torchlight but a sighting just the same.