The next morning I set off northwards towards Paihia, but not before visiting the real falls, which, it turns out, were about 3km away from the other one, on the other side of that forest...It really was quite a photogenic place and as I withdrew my camera and steadied myself for the perfect shot I realised that I’d left the battery back in the hostel. 20 minutes later I returned to finish the job.

On the way north I once again consulted the guide book and chose to follow it’s advice of a place to stop along the way, however this was the first time in my life that I’ve purposely gone out of my way to stop and look at (but not use) a public toilet building. The toilets in Kawakawa were designed by Hunderwasser, some kind of maverick Austrian architect who lived in the area (without electricity) until the 1970’s. I admired the slightly disappointing building from a cafe across the road, before reluctantly photographing it.

I made it to Paihia by lunchtime. A small town in the Bay of Islands, but popular with tourists due to its prime location a couple of kilometres from Waitangi, the place where the treaty was signed and modern day New Zealand was formed. I arrived just a massive cruise ship dropped anchor in the harbour and the town was overrun by tourists.

I baulked at the $25 admission fee to enter the Waitangi Treaty House and gardens, but instead had an excellent coffee in the cafe attached. The next morning I made my long-awaited comeback to water-based transport and hopped on the ferry to Russell, on the other side of the harbour. If I had been about 50 years older I may have had slightly more interest in the place, but it just appeared to be a bunch of old buildings. I visited New Zealand’s oldest church and then jumped back on the ferry back to Paihia, where the weather took a turn for the slightly-more-overcast and the afternoon was spoiled by heavy rain.

With the weather much better the following day I jumped back in the trusty Mazda and drove across to Ahipara a small village at the foot of 90 mile beach, which would serve as Base Camp for my assault on Cape Reinga the following morning. 

I set off for the Cape early, hoping to beat the rush of tour buses and cars and made the 120km drive up Highway 1. The lighthouse at the Cape marks the very northern tip of the country, and the point where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea, creating whirlpools where the two different currents come together.

On Thursday morning I drove three hours south to Dargaville (the sweet potato capital of New Zealand) and on to Matakohe, where I’d booked a bed in a holiday park. Matakohe brands itself ‘The Destination of Choice’, but given that the only 3 attractions were the holiday park that I was staying at, a museum about big trees and a cafe (that was attached to the museum), the choice appeared to be rather limited. I fooled the woman at the tree museum into thinking I was still a student and got a whopping $2 off the admission price, making it a still outrageous $15. To be fair, the museum was huge, just like the Kauri trees it was exhibiting, but it was still, essentially, a museum full of different bits of wood. The lady at the desk assured me that my ticket would also be valid for the next day as well, but I did not take her up on that suggestion.

I prepared the Mazda to make her final long trip of the 4500km journey and drove down to Auckland, and, perhaps as a sign of her disappointment that I would soon to be handing her back to the lovely people at Ace Rentals, the battery ran out on the central locking key-fob.

I walked into the city centre from the hostel, but not after insulting my 10^th Canadian of the holiday by asking her what part of the USA she was from. I headed straight for the SkyTower, New Zealand’s tallest building, mainly because it was the only place I could find without a map. I bought my ticket to the top, paying the full admission price having been rumbled by the man at the till who noticed that my student card expired 6 months ago. The weather was clear and so a spectacular 360 degree views of the city was possible, including Mt Eden and One Tree Hill (that of U2 song fame, not the vaguely basketball-related US TV programme), which no longer actually has a tree on it.  In the evening I watched New Zealand being demolished by Australia in the cricket World Cup.

Today I visited Auckland Museum, an impressive looking building hosting a variety of unrelated artefacts, ranging from WW1 and WW2 memorabilia to models of volcanoes, from Maori carvings to pictures of fish.

On Monday I will embark on my 33 hour long 24 hour period, leaving NZ at 3pm, crossing the date line and arriving in LA 9 hours before I took off.