Wake up to a coffee and sausage baps cooked on the bbq, this time watching the wilderness as we eat them outside

Packed up, we head off to Whangarei to pick up supplies from PAK’n’SAVE

Next, we ride about an hour from the east coast to the west, stopping at Dargaville

We stroll down the main street, check out the riverside, that used to be the wharf, and head for a couple of coffees at sixty8 café for a couple flat whites

A few cheeky facts we picked up about Dargaville:

• It’s an inland port, exported the largest tonnage of kauri timber and gum from any port in New Zealand
• Dargaville is the only town in New Zealand named after its founder
• It was the first town in New Zealand to form an all-women Fire Brigade, back in 1943
• Dargaville is home to Waipoua Forest which is the largest kauri forest in NZ, at 14,000 hectares
• The Northern Wairoa River runs through and is the longest navigable one in NZ, at about 120 km long
• Dargaville is also home to Kaipara Harbour which receives water from a catchment of over 641,000 hectares making it the longest shoreline in the southern hemisphere

We get back on the road and head to Kai Iwi Lakes

These are a unique series of freshwater dune lakes with varying levels of depth

We prepare some ham baguettes to have for lunch and then stroll along the lake’s shore – the water’s almost warm!

Back in the car, we drive a bit further to reach Trounson Kauri Park

There’s a loop track of boardwalk through the forest we do; we’ve got our eyes peeled for possums and kiwis – sadly, no luck this time (see the featured image)

Another attraction nearby is Tāne Mahuta which is a walk through nature to take you to an enormous kauri tree, known as the Lord of the Forest; unfortunately, we’ve come just after 4pm so have missed the opening hours – we will have to come back!

It’s time to head to where we’re staying tonight as it’s still a very fair distance from where we are – over 2 hours to do 153 km…

We realise we have to get a little fuel in order to fully make the journey – the fuel’s extortionate this far in the sticks though, at $30 for 10L!

Lots of the route is wiggly-windy roads as we traverse high mountain passes as well as the coast – this gives for some nice views

Part of the way also includes gravel road for about 10 km, which is fun ????, as well as parts of the road being missing due to land slips and wash outs

We eventually make it to the area we’re staying and pop to a local PAK’n’SAVE to grab some dinner

We have a slab pepperoni pizza with some jalapeno poppers before calling it a night