In actuality we had a very pleasant Kiwi lady who gave us some useful information.
Picked up the hire car in the early morning coldness. This time another Ford Focus, which we decided was a much better vehicle than the Fiat500.
The Fiat was too small and underpowered for the automatic gearbox as it was never quite sure which gear it wanted to be in.
Anyway got away from the airport and after 4 weeks driving on the right side of the road it took some getting used driving on the right side of the road, which of course is the left.
We had forgotten to download the free GPS app for New Zealand before leaving Canada, so without Flossies New Zealand cousin to guide us we had to make our own way to Whangarei (pronounced Van-ger-ray - with a soft sort of silent g - a bit like a Welsh mutation). The map Avis had given us was too difficult to understand but luckily a local person gave us some instructions how to head north out of Auckland, which worked. There was one toll road, which we managed to avoid by taking the scenic route. This was lucky as we stopped in Orewa for a walk around part of the estuary
where we saw Oystercatcher, and either Pied or Little Shag, probably the latter given the recorded range (a bit of a blurred piccie).
This was followed by a cup of tea, breakfast croissant and a cake. As you can see Eric enjoyed his.
Further along the road in Orewa we hit the beach. Another chance to exercise those legs after sitting down for so long. Especially as the sun had risen to warm us by now.
On to the next beach at Waiwera.
Then just before we rejoined the main highway again we came across the river and mangrove swamp.
started to go inland, and a stopped to look at a place called Puihoi, which is an historic Bohemian village famous for its cheese factory.
We saw this Pukeko or Swamp Hen around this area.
Stopped for a leg stretch near Wenderholm Regional Park for a gawk at the view.
At Pohuehue we stopped for a walk in some old growth Kauri forest that led to (yet another) waterfall and saw some free range chickens wandering at the side of the car park, no farm or any buildings or apparent owners anywhere around.
The start of the short but many stepped walk.
Eric looking for the waterfall, it could be heard but not seen.
Also back at the car park we saw Monarch Butterfly - the other side of the world to the last one!
Thought Warkworth might be worth a stop as it's namesake in Northumberland is so beautiful, but it didn't quite match our expectations even if it did have a suburb called Alnwick, and a river.
Along the coast was Mangawhai Heads and Waipu, where there were some protected sand dunes as well as a surfing beach, both of which had rare birds on. The dunes were largely inaccessible so didn't see the Caspian Terns but we stumbled upon the Banded Dotterel at the beach. it's nesting site was cordoned off and labelled.
Waipu
Despite this we reached the B&B in Whangarei (well Glenbervie really) fairly early in the afternoon and were upgraded to a larger room, with it's own sitting room and access to the verandah. Freshened up and headed back for some more sightseeing:
Whangarei Falls ...
... and the Town Basin, which was in fact a Marina
with some lovely buildings around it, a clock museum with flower beds and some shops.
Starting to flag a bit by now so return to B&B for dinner and bed.
The B&B is an old house reminiscent of Carnegie built in the 1800s complete with tin roof. It had not been built here but moved from a spot about 6 miles away. We saw a house being moved on a trailer in the Town Basin area, but the B&B house was actually sliced in two to move it, as it was too big to do in one go.
Directions from here should now be OK as we did now manage to download the NZ version of NavFree, so we do have a GPS lady to guide us. Purely coincidentally she is also called Flossie.
Lots of birds seen today. We are going to put them in a separate entry just to record all the NZ birds as we go.