The next morning I started my journey to the Northlands along the west coast, via the Kaori Forests and finished up in Opononi. This is a smashing little village on the Hokianga Harbour in the Northlands. There used to be a dolphin here called 'Opo' but he died some time ago and is buried under a statue of him that's on the harbour wall.
I decided to stay there for the rest of my holiday as it was a good point from which to visit other areas nearby, also the land lady (she comes from Cornwall) did me a good deal on the price of my chalet. As it turned out we realised that I used to drink in her pub in Looe, it's a small world...
The next day I set off for 'The Bay of Islands' and the famous Treaty House where the treaty was signed. A word of warning here about petrol in the Northlands, when you get out into the sticks there are very few petrol stations about, at one stage in my journey I was almost running on vapours and I just headed to the nearest village which was about 30 miles, it had one petrol station and only one pump luckily it was unleaded so I was saved. After that I filled up whenever I went past a petrol station!
The Bay of Islands was very nice but a bit commercialised, I'm glad I didn't decide to stay there, Opononi was much nicer and only 2 hours drive away. I visited the Waitangi National Park where the Treaty House is and saw the amazing 'Maori Whare Runanga' which is the Maori meeting house.
