New Zealand: The Road to Reporoa (Part One)

Being driven on roads that varied from bumpy to just gravel whilst having a rather queasy stomach is no laughing matter. In fact, I puked all over someone's front lawn (sorry about that whoever you are), though the toilet in the camper van saved many an accident. Anyhow, despite my illness, we continued our journey, working our way down the coast through Auckland and onto Reporoa where we stayed for a few days and attended a lovely wedding. However, I'm getting ahead of myself. The first place we visited on our Southward progress was Kawakawa, where there are some rather unique public toilets designed by Hundertwasser. They feature multiple coloured tiles with glass bottles embedded in the walls. A great place for a poo (one of many that day...). We then continued to Whangarei where we visited the impressive local waterfall and had a lovely walk around the area.  After sitting down nearby for a rest, we watched some local Maori boys swimming in the water, fearless of the nearby waterfall.  One of them then proceeded to climb quickly to the top of a ridiculously high tree and dive into the water.  We weren't the only ones impressed.  The boys noticed some other tourists had taken a video of his dive and so went to them to see the resulting footage. Onwards we went, to see Goat Island.  We originally planned on getting a boat trip around the island as described in the guide book, but we were out of season so it wasn't running.  Instead we clambered all over the rocky beach, noticing odd tiny copper sculptures embedded in the stone and the bizarre looking trees overhanging us.  As there were a lot of rock pools around, I inevitably slipped one foot into a shin deep example to much laughter from Katherine and an old Scottish couple who had come from nowhere behind us to witness my mishap and laugh about it. We decided that we would rather tackle Auckland's traffic in the evening rather than the next day, so we tore our way down State Highway 1 to find the little town of Pokeno as an ideal quiet place to park up for the night. To be continued...