Kauri Coast-Saturday

As our good friend Sarah was shortly leaving us for home back in Paris and she hadn't manage to visit the area, we drove to the Kauri Coast on Saturday morning taking us a few hours. We checked into a cabin at the top ten holiday park situated in the Waipoua forest where we had stayed before. The weather was miserable for the whole drive from Auckland with really heavy rain but it was finally starting to clear up pretty soon after we arrived. We drove to the North end of the forest to visit the huge, ancient Kauri trees and even after seeing them previously we were again shocked at their amazing height and presence. The forest is so thick and its easy to think you are lost in the rainforest somewhere...so good to know there are no snakes in N.Z!

When we got back to our cabin we had a quick sausage bbq (freezing outside) and some time to chill out before we were picked up in a bus along with another couple to go and search for some kiwi in the bush :)

Our guide for the night taking us round the Trounson Native Reserve was so knowledgable and has been doing the same walk nightly for 7 years! It took us about 2hours to go round the forest track and it was so amazing to be in the bush in the pitch dark with only torch light to guide us. Mostly our only light was the guides torch which had a red filter so as not to disturb any of the wildlife, on some nights the guide sees two-3 kiwi and on his best night saw 6! He knew exactly the spots to look and was very thorough. Near the start of our walk we saw a possum, it was so close to us and didnt show any fear at all...it was very cheeky looking and jumped from tree to tree, so funny. We also saw weta (big n.z bugs), huge eels in the river who we fed colby cheese ha ha, spiders and glow-worms. Unfortunately we didnt see any kiwi :( it was a freezing cold night though so the guide reckons they were probably taking some shelter..it was still an excellent experience and we didnt come away feeling too disappointed in not seeing our local legend! OH...and sarah fell in the river at one point which we didnt even realise was there as was so dark, it was very funny and we were told it has happened many times before.