New van, new travel partner, new adventure… As my travel mate -Â Frank – wrote it: sort of nice and challenging trip!
Not exactly the kind of  journey I was expecting, I have to say. It was sometimes pretty hard for me to deal with and I thought several times to escape this little nightmare… However isn’t it in difficult times that we learn the most?! Still, this was pretty hard and interesting to discover where I need to improve some of my behaviour to better face people and life situation! Just need now to find out how! 
Anyway, we still had some fun in this beautiful NZ landscape and a great last laugh the last day, about his van partner - by the way, speaking about van, the Escape one we had on my first road trip was a bit more practical even if the Wicked one had perfect panoramic roof – Ariane you would have love that! –  to watch the stars ; unless our was broken! 
It seems to  me that the Northland is a bit more busy than other NZ areas… Maybe because it’s Auckland closest region…
Our 5 days road trip brought us first to the Goat Island and his 547-hectare area established in 1978 as the country’s first Marine Reserve. You can snorkel or scuba dive from the beach – I know some people who would love that: Baptiste, Lulu, Renaud… We’ve seen many doing it but that day was too cold and windy for me! - So we ended up on a glass-bottom boat from where we’ve seen many Snapper and stripy Parora fishes, seaweed and a beautifull ray. The Marine Reserve also include excellent interpretative panels providing pictures of species you’re likely to encounter as well as explaining where one of the ancestral Maori canoes landed.
We continue our journey crossing Pakiri Beach and the undeniably pretty Bay of Islands before reaching The Far North Cape Reinga lighthouse, looking out over the endless ocean where the waters of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet.  The next day, after watching a shy sunrise behind the cloud, we made our way to the famous Ninety Miles Beach - Ninety Kilometre Beach seems to be more accurate according to Lonely Planet – a continuous stretch lines with high sand dunes where cars are allowed to drive at low tide.
In the afternoon after a short boat trip crossing between Kohukohu and Rawene, a short stop at the absolutely amazing Arai te Uru lookout – this is now in competition with Kaikoura for my favorite place! – we stopped in the Waipoua Kauri Forest to see Tane Mahuta, the largest Kauri tree alive: 51m – 13,8m girth & a wood mass of 244,5 cubic metres, standing here for somewhere between 1200 and 2000 years! Even my giant travel buddy looked really small next to it!
In the evening we arrived at a DOC (Department Of Conservation) campsite and went for a night walk in the Trounson Kauri Park where we missed the kiwis – seen by 2 german girls just before – but seen a lot of glow-worm. Heading the next morning toward Auckland in order to catch my flight to Brisbane-Australia while Frank will have 5 more weeks to discover breathtaking NZ…
