Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): Flying Through the Far North in our Spaceship

So I got to NZ finally! STA have had to change my Sydney - Bangkok ticket for the day that I return to Sydney from NZ so that I will only be in transit (and therefore don't need another Oz visa) and once I have my new Oz visa they will change it back! Its all very complicated but the important thing is that I made it to NZ and didn't get arrested at customs...only 6 hours later than planned!

The first thing me and Sara did was go and pick up our 'Spaceship', a custom fitted Toyota Lucida with a bed, fridge, DVD/CD player, cooker and table! Her name is SETI, named after the SETI organisation ('Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence'), which is trying to detect Extraterrestrial life!

We drove straight out of Auckland, North on the Twin Discovery Route. The scenery in NZ is amazing. There are huge rolling hills, lush green forrests and huge farms everywhere. Its a bit like the English countryside but more remote and a bit warmer! Our first stop was a small random beach where we walked along the black sand and out into the sea across a large rock. The next stop was The Art of Cheese Cafe shop in Puhoi!! We had a little look at cheese being made and I couldn't resist buying some pepper chedder. After that we visted The Honey Centre in Warkworth, which had transparent bee hives and all the flavoures of honey you could taste (for free!). We spent the night parked right by the sea just north of Warkworth.

After waking up early we headed off to the Kauri Museum in Matakohe. The museum was all about the Kauri tree, one of NZ's most important exports in the early days, and had the cross-section of a huge Kauri tree right in the middle. The museum gave directions for the largest living Kauri tree on record so we went to see that in the forest just up the road. After walking for about 15 minutes we were suddenly surprised by the hugest tree I've ever seen in my life! It was over 8m in diameter and even the branches were bigger than most trees I've ever seen! We then drove North to Rawene and got the car ferry across a huge river. We spent the night parked by the sea again, at the edge of Ninety Mile Beach in Ahipara.