Day 7 - Tane Mahuta, continue north, dinner with seagull in Mangonui

12/21/2014

I am awake as expected. It's 6 o'clock and still quite cloudy outside. But the birds are singing. I pack up my things and toast my last rolls again, eat my last cheese, tomatoes and make two cups of instant coffee, which doesn't really taste good.

At 9:15 am, I am in the car. About 6 km to the Highway 12, which I drive north again. After an hour through a typical New Zealand landscape with gentle hills in all shades of green, the winding passage through the Waipoua Forest, I have reached the location of Tane Mahuta (Maori for Lord of the Forest).

It is the largest living kauri tree in New Zealand and surely one of the oldest living beings in the world, estimated to be 2000 years old. It stands there gigantic and radiates strength and tranquility, so that all the people who are there (fortunately only a few) immediately start whispering. It is over 50 meters tall and you can only really grasp its size visually from a slightly further away, when you see the small people in the foreground admiring the tree while standing right in front of it. In the past, only Maori priests were allowed to visit this tree and the one I saw the day before.

I slowly roll further north on the highway and after about 100 km and a leisurely 3.5 hours after my departure this morning, I reach the region around Opononi and Omapere. The sun is shining above me, it is now 26 degrees, even though the weather forecast had predicted rain instead of sun. In front of me is the blue Tasman Sea and an incredibly large sand island.

You are looking into a strait here, which extends far into the land and provides beautiful town beaches for the towns of Opononi and Omapere. But first, I walk to a lookout point and see a great surf to the north on an endless beach, and to the south, steep cliffs and rocks. Here, everywhere, the New Zealand Christmas Trees, the Pohutukawa trees with their red flowers, are growing.

I'm getting hungry slowly and find a newly opened café where I order delicious grilled vegetables and an oven-baked Kumara (sweet potato). I sit in the shade because the sun would burn your head immediately. In front of me is this strait that comes from the Tasman Sea, and a few people are enjoying the small beach.

Shortly after 3:00 pm, I continue driving and 20 minutes later I reach the ferry in Rawene. You don't drive for 20 minutes with this thing and it costs 20$! But that's how I am on the other side of the strait in Kohukohu and now I'm driving through the Raeta Forest on a Scenic Road, which is so curvy that I soon regret not taking the longer but straighter route to the west. Here, where I drive through the Mangamuka Gorge, it is Highway 1 that winds endlessly up and down in a series of hairpin bends. I am practically in the middle of the rainforest.

At around 5:00 pm, I reach Mangonui, which is located at Doubtless Bay, a bay of the Pacific Ocean. The historic Mangonui-Hotel is an experience that I don't need again. It's cheap, but of abysmal quality. With 40$, you can't expect much and I agree not to have my own bathroom, but when I see the furniture on the otherwise beautiful wooden frame on the first floor and the tattered duvet cover when I go to bed later, it's just disgusting. And then there's a dirty toilet in the hallway - no, I'd rather pay 80-100 dollars next time and not have to think about bugs.

Balcony furniture...

I walk to the Fish House, a New Zealand celebrity for its fish & chips. So I get two pieces of 'Blue Nose' (a type of fish), a bowl of potato salad, and a beer for just under 30 dollars. Along with plastic cutlery, everything is served in a piece of paper. I look out over the Doubtless Bay, the sailboats, and a seagull keeps me company for less noble reasons. When I'm done, I let it have its way and it helps itself generously to the potato salad.

I walk up and down the 150m beach promenade, sit in the sun for a while, and then download my pictures. The night is extremely restless because the bed is like a hollow, in addition to that disgusting bedding, and thoughts of bedbugs and fleas surround me. So, at half past 7 in the morning, I make my escape.

Daily distance: 223km