Friday 23 March 2012

My Travels Continue...

I've moved further north. I'm in the far 'Far North' of New Zealand. 'O' on the map shows where I am now. A small place called Houhora, it's about 75km south of Cape Reinga where the famous lighthouse is.
From Awanui north (look at map) it's the Aupouri Peninsular, one of New Zealands remotest areas despite being popular with tourists in buses that whizz up and down on day trips.
I love it up here, the remoteness, quietness and lack of crowds really appeals to me. I could never do a 'day trip' there is too much to explore.
The Maori call this peninsular 'Te Hiku o te Ika a Maui', the Tail of Maui's Fish, a name derived from the legend that North Island was a fish hauled out of the ocean by the god Maui while he was seated in his canoe.
The peninsular is almost entirely sand dunes, some have been planted with Pine Trees and grasses to stabilise the sand. Other areas have been developed into Avocado and Olive orchards.
In the early days after the Kauri trees were cut down this whole area was gumfields, the valuable gum was dug from the ground by the early Dalmatian settlers. There are some wonderful museums depicting all this.

The pictures show where I have been parked, overlooking the Houhora Harbour with Mt Camel in the background.
Pictures:
1 A lovely place to sit at the bottom of the garden.
2. Map.
3. Looking south along the harbour, Mt Camel in the background.
4. Looking north along the harbour to the wharf where I tried fishing - no luck though!

Posted by Picasa

1 comment:

  1. really interesting blog and lovely photos :) Would really like if you checked out my blog...maybe follow :)x

    pretty-quirky.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete