After rain comes... no sun, but mud

After narrow, partly flooded, muddy roads through a seemingly endless jungle, we finally arrive at the campsite. The road is so incredibly curvy and I feel very sick. It's almost getting dark and we just park the bus briefly to choose a nice spot. For a very brief second, I thought about the fact that maybe it wasn't the best idea to stand in the meadow, but we were already standing there. We got out and walked across the square through all the puddles and mud. We then decided to keep the place where we were standing and just wanted to turn around so that we weren't standing crooked. That didn't work because surprise, we were stuck deep in the wet, muddy meadow. We couldn't change that anymore and drank a whole bottle of wine and fidgeted. In between we went mosquito hunting. We have never seen mosquitoes as big as in this swamp forest. We're still in the middle of the hunt when a beast cheekily sits on my hand and stabs me. However, our mission was very successful and we eliminated all enemies and no one was stung anymore. During the last lap I almost fell asleep, all the impressions, the weather and the wine had their effects. We go up to the bathroom together again. Then we finish the round and I lie down and immediately fall asleep without covering myself. Luckily Maren took care of that for me. In the morning we fill all the mud holes with straw and wood and a very nice German family dad helps us push. Unsuccessful. So I go in my pajamas with Adilettes to the neighboring house, where I have a jeep. The very grim Maori comes out of the house before I have knocked. He has a coffee cup in his hand, a long ponytail and gray jogging pants. I ask him very nicely if he can pull us out in his jeep and he says he'll come down soon. That was it and within a few minutes Willy had solid ground under his tires again. The Maori says goodbye after we have said thank you 100 times and he perhaps even had a very small smile on his lips. First we park in the asphalt parking lot, scrub off all the mud and have breakfast in peace. This really took us out of our morning routine. Afterwards we drive a short distance back into the forest and look at the two largest and oldest Kauri spruce trees. Tane Mahuta - lord of the forest, 51.5m high and 13.8m in diameter. Te Matua Ngahere - father of the forest, 29.9m high and 16.41m in diameter. After all the experiences, we are happy to finally drive further south. Another short stopover and we drive down past Auckland again.