From the East, to the Far North, to the West. The Hokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour and there were some highlights for us here. First Opononi, where Opo the dolphin was made famous. He was a friendly Bottlenose dolphin that visited Opononi in the 1950’s and enjoyed playing and spending time with humans. He was a real hit back then and now has a memorial statue to his name. Whilst here, we also headed out to the SouthHead lookout point and enjoyed the amazing views across the harbour and along the coast. The Hokianga headland opposite is famous for it’s huge sand dunes and wild tidal currents.
We then drove through the Waipoua Kauri Forest, the largest remaining native forest in New Zealand. It was like driving through an ancient world with the tall trees towering above us. The forest is home to ‘Tane Mahuta’ the country’s largest Kauri tree. Our photos don’t do it justice, but if you can imagine 4.4 metres in diameter with a 13 metre circumference and the lowest branch being 18 metres high, it’s quite spectacular and approximately2000 years old!
We had a quick stop at the Kai Iwi lakes, before settling into our Kauri Coast campground for the final night. The lakes are made up of 3basin type dune lakes with no outflow, containing crystal clear freshwater and were created 1.8 million years ago.
