Wednesday 3 July
We had both slept really well, maybe due to extra layers or maybe we were both very tired. Either way we slept more or less all night and woke at 7 with the alarm to heat the van a little and have breakfast. It was raining and was obvious it had been raining most of the night. Just our luck really after it being such nice weather for it to rain the night we were stuck in a field! We were expecting to have to maybe do some walking to find help so I packed a rucksack with a few bits and also a towel so we could cross the gorge at the end of the track. Off we trudged in the cold, wet mud hoping to find signal on the phone sooner rather than later or at least find somebody else who could help. We got to the gorge and took off our shoes and socks to go through the water. It was cold but not as cold as we were dreading. Liam then spotted what looked to be a police car down the bottom of the track so quickly dried himself off and ran to it before it drove off again. By the time I had got my shoes back on and walked down a way Liam was on his way back with the police car following. He had been parked there for "speed checks" but had fallen asleep due to already working for a few hours, Liam woke him up and asked for assistance calling AA but the policeman said no problem he would help. So he called for backup and drove us down to the campervan to sit and keep dry. We chatted for 15 minutes or so, him telling us a bit about himself and the kinds of things he does in the force here. He was a very friendly guy probably in his 40s and it was easy to chat and have a bit of a laugh about he situation we were in. He was happy to help, saying he often has to deal with negative and horrible things in the day so this was a nice change. Back up arrived,which was 2 more police in a 4 wheel drive with towing equipment. They were all very helpful and all English, which is by no means uncommon here from what we have seen.
They saw the booklet we used and had a laugh over that, also joked about the amount of tyre marks all over the field and asked if we had been making them all last night before getting stuck. After about 15 minutes we were out of the mud and they all drove off after exchanging goodbyes. After 1 minute I realised the police car still had my bag and the towel in it, we drove to find it but it had gone. No signal on the phone meant that all we could do was drive until we found some and call the services to get it back. Luckily he noticed fast enough and he was coming back down the road before we had got far. So another set of thank yous and goodbyes were exchanged before going to Kaitia, a nearby town for a hot takeaway tea and a sit in the van to gather ourselves a bit.
We had wondered whether to go to the highest point in New Zealand but after realising what awful weather it was it would have simply been a day of travel just to say we had been not to actually see much, so we drove to pukenui forest down bumpy roads, winding roads, past old farms and wooden buildings, domed tin houses, sheep, cows, horses, turkeys. We drove through areas of forest that were being used for lumber and orchards, the whole time it was raining and misty which we actually really liked.
We went to a place, I can't remember the name with it being days after that I'm writing this, but it was like a shop almost with lots of things carved from the local wood, I remember seeing that the wood was 45,000 years old but that can't be right so god knows what that was about! Maybe it was fossilised wood they found. It was expensive anyway! There was also an old tree trunk in the middle of the place with steps all carved into it like a spiral stair case up it, it was really impressive.
We also saw a sign about an old gum burial and went down a track for about 10 minutes, only to see it was a small hut that perhaps was interesting but we had to pay to go in and we really couldn't be bothered so just left again.
We drove to 90 mile beach, it was still raining and made it all very foggy but you could still see the beach went right the way into the distance both ways. We had the whole stretch totally to ourselves, we watched the big waves for a while and then had a bit of a play on the sand in the van. We took turns to drive it up and down a bit and drove maybe around 10 miles back down along the beach chasing the sea gulls.
After that we tried to find Kaitia walk way at herekino forest but couldn't find it, so decided to stop for lunch before driving through kohukohu, looking at New Zealand oldest bridge ( which happens to be a tiny stone footbridge built in 1800 and something) and the old buildings and an old harbour. We had to wait for the ferry across to rawene around half an hour, we were expecting more from it but it was just a small village. Despite it being old, wooden and charismatic we just drove through it. We drove through opononi which has big sand dunes and beach where you can do sand duning. It was very cold and wet so we just just stopped off for the view before carrying on further.
Next was the driving through forests where we went to see the big Kauri tree. It was easily the most enormous tree we have ever seen. It lives in the oldest stretch of forest in New Zealand and is aproximately 2000 years old, can you believe it? The whole forest has such a diverse Eco system similar to tropical areas of the world, with the trees themselves holding thousands of mini ecosystems on their branches themselves. It was just astonishing how big that tree was, I don't think the photos really show quite how massive it was however I think Liam took a picture of a sign saying its dimensions.
The plan was to only drive until about 6 tonight so we could find some electric to charge the van and do some washing but we couldn't find anywhere and couldn't find Internet to even look online for somewhere. So we finally found somewhere a lot further south than expected, somewhere called sheep world near some valley. We had to pay a bit more than the last few times but we did have our own little toilet and shower block right next to us which was nice. After showering and putting a wash load on we had tea and watched Bruno in bed before settling to sleep around 11ish, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the van and looking forward to another day.
