Hoklanga Harbour and Giant Kauri Tree

Originally people told us that it was a bit of a waste of time to go north of Auckland but it is definitely about the nicest part of the North Island of New Zealand!  We really enjoyed the Bay of Islands and we left by going down the west coast.  We saw a sign for a scenic outlook and decided to explore and discovered Hoklanga Harbour which was just beautiful.  You are high on an outlook with the waves breaking over reefs in the Tasman Sea.  Warren took the opportunity to walk all the way down to the beach.

This was the view that greeted us.

A little closer view.  I did see some new birds that I haven't identified yet.  

The little blue speck at the bottom of the picture is Warren.  We were walking down this path which looked definitely tropical and were wondering about the Kauri trees, none of which looked that big until we turned around in one area.  This was the giant Kauri tree which is estimated to be 2000 years old.  Hard to get the perspective in the picture.  They used to cover New Zealand but were great wood for ship building.  It is illegal to cut them down now.

This was part of the view from the sunrise that was in the previous blog.  This was from our deck in the motel at the Bay of Islands.

This is a Pied Cormorant.  We have seen these on both islands but this was on a path near the Haruru Falls in the Northlands. They were called "tree penguins" by the locals as they look so much like penguins. More handsome than our cormorants for sure!!

Some more of the cormorants.  Off to see the glow worm caves and thermal features south of Auckland!