Paul here…
We left the Bay of Islands and headed to the west coast of Northland. The roads were very quiet, and the area seemed to be less prosperous. We saw the amazing sand dunes across from Omapere. They were enormous! My photos just couldn’t show the scale of them. Much bigger than the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes!
Te Matua Ngahere sign
Then we headed south into the Kauri Forest. Kauri are a native tree, that have been in New Zealand for thousands of years. They are renowned for the quality of their wood, their gum (amber), and their size. We walked to the 2nd largest Kauri, it has a circumference of 16.41m. It was enormous! Though not as high as some of the other kauri we saw.
Kauri Trees
Later we visited the Kauri museum at Matakohe. This was an excellent museum that explained the history of kauri, their exploitation and their preservation. Well worth a visit.