NZ: Day 17
Drove up to the Waipoua forest area on the peninsula at the north part of the island. The hike I had planned for us was the Hauturu Highpoint hike. It starts off as a cool loop hike up the side of a waterfall, which we both had a lot of fun climbing. You then get to a turnoff for the high point. The sign there said it was another 2km to the top and it was steep the entire way. Rather than face a mutiny from my sister, who probably would have thrown me over the waterfall if I had made her climb up that, we just skipped the highpoint and completed the loop. It wasn’t the intense hike I was hoping for, but the forest area was really beautiful. On the way back from the hike, we stopped off at the kauri forest groves and saw the largest trees in New Zealand. We actually tried to take a hike through the forest, but after conferring at length and deciding the correct way to proceed, we managed to end up walking in the wrong direction back into the parking lot. This is what happens when two people with no sense of direction attempt to find their way.
We drove down into Dargaville and found our hotel. It was not the world’s most impressive hotel, but was fairly nice given how small the town was. We wandered for a long time trying to find somewhere to eat dinner and finally ended up a surprisingly good Indian restaurant. The guy who waited on us was crazy, but the food and beer were good. My sister actually ate Indian food, which was impressive. I was almost as stunned as I was the night she willingly ordered a mushroom appetizer. Crashed out in our hotel. Last night in NZ.