To the North Island

I leave the South Island from Picton on Friday 10th March, and have to comes I will miss the South Island greatly, she has been a most rewarding travel partner and I'm sure in the future we will become reacquainted. I arrive in to Wellington at 5.45pm and ride up hwy 3 for two hours and stop at the one horse town that is Foxton. The motel is uninviting but clean enough and I settle in for the night, noting rain is coming in. I wake at 3am to rain hammering on the uninsulated roof and resign myself to a very wet ride and a poor nights sleep.

By morning the rain has not abated, so I make a slow start and head for the town of Whanganui where I stop for a coffee before taking the Whanganui River Road. This follows the valley cut deep in to the lust hills by the river of the same name and even in good weather is known to have high rainfall, but I'm dress for rain so what the hell. It's a worthy if misty detour and I pass through small Maori settlements and St Joseph's Church, a catholic mission built in 1892 and still in operation as a nunnery. I dropped in but no salvation was to be found! 

I rejoin hwy 4 and continue until I reach the small sky village of National Park, where I make the tactical decision to find a dry room for the night, it's pissing down. I should be able to see Mt Ruapehu standing 2792 metres above me at this point, New Zealand's highest volcano, but she is being shy today and hiding behind a thick vale of cloud.

By morning the rain has not eased , so after a quick visit to some hot pools to see steam and mud, I make a break for Auckland, the forecast for the next three to four days is exactly the same, so I won't see as much of the north island as I wanted, but you have to bow to nature and time, I need to get going and start preparing for Australia.

I arrive in to Auckland after an extremely blustery ride at around 6.30 , loaded with some cold beers and some wine, it's the least I can do in exchange for a hot meal and a warm bed for the night , also the good company of Brenton and Maria, my hosts.

The following morning I head out on the hwy 16 following the western shoreline, rejoining the 1 briefly and then the 14 to Dargaville where I stop for coffee and fuel. Heading north you encounter the Waipoua Forest, the last bastion of the giant Kauri trees, the largest of which is Tane Mahuta, a whopping near 14m across, she is a majestic giant. Simply sitting in the presence of such natural wonder fills you with energy and peace. She is possibly 2000 years old, it puts our own lives and human times scales in to perspectives; our lives that we can feel are so important, are just a blip on this planet.

From the lust rain forest at 350 metres, with in half an hour I reach the settlement of Opononi on the Hokianga Harbour, where opposite there are giant sand dunes. How you can go from rain forest to what is ostensibly a desert, is find unfathomable, I'm sure it can all be explained, but it is a wonder to behold. I camp up at a small holiday park and take a walk along to beach. The sun slowly sets over the bay and behind the sand dunes that are protecting the harbour from the ravages of the Tasman     

Sea behind.