Day 2 in Northland - the higher you hike, the further you can see

Hello everyone,

Today, I want to tell you about a beautiful day. We woke up this morning at our campsite and got ready at a relaxed pace. At 9:35 am, we set off on our hike to Mt Manaia. It was quite a strenuous hike, and we climbed a lot of stairs. But in return, we were rewarded with views of really interesting trees along the way and an incredible panorama at the summit. You can't imagine how amazing the view was, and you could see in all directions. We liked it up there so much that we just sat there for an hour. Of course, we also took a few photos, probably around 100, and simply enjoyed the view. Throughout this time, we were the only two people on the summit. As we made our way back, we encountered some small groups coming up. We were so glad that we were up there at that time and could enjoy it undisturbed. We arrived back at the car at 11:50 am. I remember the times so well because we were very proud of ourselves for beating the estimated hiking time. After this great start to the day, we headed towards the Bay of Islands. We initially set our sights on Russel, but we made a detour to the Hundertwasser Toilets along the way. There is a small town where Hundertwasser designed a public toilet. And it was really cool. After that, we drove to Russel on a gravel road and had our lunch there. After refueling, we went for another short hike. They estimated an hour for 780m, which worried us a bit because we expected to climb a mountain, but fortunately, that wasn't the case. It was another nice little walk that took us about 15 minutes with photo stops. After this exhausting activity, we drove to the nearest beach and relaxed there while sunbathing. Then we took the ferry back because I refused to drive back on the gravel road we came from. Besides, it's nice to take a look at such a small and charming ferry. We arrived at our campsite for the day around 5:30 pm. This time it's an actual campsite with a kitchen and showers, and an amazing view. After I took care of some paperwork and Lina made a phone call, we cooked our dinner and had some tea. Then I took a walk around the campsite and took some photos of the sunset. Now it's time to go to bed as it's getting dark again and starting to get chilly.

I'm excited to see what tomorrow brings and look forward to telling you about it.

Until then,

Your Jessi