Te Kapuru, Glinks Gully, and another great visit.

On Tuesday we left Auckland in our grand and huge and luxurious camper van, and headed north to try to find a couple of friends. Sadly we missed the first one, took the wrong road and couldn't get turned around. But we will try again soon. The rest of the day we got accustomed to driving here, the mirror image of driving at home. After the first terrifying few miles it got easier, and by today we are old hands at driving on the left side of the road in a drivers seat on the right of the vehicle.

We drove through spectacular farm country, through tiny intersections called Dairy Flat and other colorful names that reflected the rolling green meadows full of sheep and cows. The green was electric, and the hills went up and down steeply. We finally, with great ingenuity, found our way to Te Kaparu, a tiny spot on a peninsula below Dargaville on the West coast. We had to stop and ask questions over and over again, but we made it. The map doesn't show any of the tiny dirt roads we traveled to find our friend Christine. She was a student in Daniella's class 3 years ago, and she lives in a spectacular rural area in a lovely home on a hill with a pond where swans were swimming with their babies, and the green land rolled out for miles in all directions. We could hear the roar of the Tasman Sea from her yard, and soon after we arrived she piled us into her Jeep and drove us further down her dirt road to Glinks Gully where everyone in her family has a "Bach" (beach house). This beach is huge. At low tide you can drive your Jeep for miles along it. When we were there there was nobody else at all. It was stunning.








Christine made us a great dinner and we sat in front of a fireplace and talked into the night before finally crashing into bed in our camper van. It was great to be with her. If anyone wants a spectacular and end of the road home in NZ, hers is for sale.


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Location:Puketona Road,Paihia,New Zealand