McKinney Kauri

After 4 weeks in Auckland, we finally made a short trip away from the city. Driving here still requires a lot of extra concentration to stay on the “correct” side of the road. We did take a trip to Maraetai, but it completely wiped us out, both driver and navigator!

Ponga (Silver Fern)

Today we went up to Kauri Park, near Warkworth, about 60 km North of Auckland. Aside from the daily natural beauty of the ocean, we haven’t really gotten out into any forest. Kauri Park has two very large Kauri trees and a short forest walk through some amazing forest (bush, as they call it here). There were magnificent ferns and foliage. We heard some unusual birds, but didn’t catch a glimpse of them. We also heard some cows at some point, which seemed strange given the really rain forest-like feel of the ecosystem. We did see quite a few Pukeko birds on the drive, but I still haven’t gotten a photo of one, yet. The walk was very invigorating, not very demanding, just a really nice introduction to the native plants.

Tomorrow will be the start of my third week at work. There is so much to say about that, but I’ll just post some photos from the day for now.