The Log of a 3,500 mile Journey

This daily log gives an account of a 7-week motorhome journey through the North Island of New Zealand by hired motorhome, leaving Auckland on 4 July 2005. It is our third visit to this beautiful country, split between two very different mountainous islands: North Island is Volcanic while South Island is Alpine. The population of the country (with an area about the same as the British Isles) is under 4 million, three-quarters of whom are on North Island, with over a million of them in Auckland. That makes the rest of the country, especially the South Island, very peaceful. In 2000, we cycled 4,500 miles from the northernmost to the southernmost points and back again (part of a 12,000-mile round-the-world cycle ride).

In 2002, we returned for further exploration – the South Island by hired motorhome and about 1,500 miles of the North Island, once again by bicycle.

The route for this third visit is to take us around North Island, starting in the semi-tropical Northland and then circling the East Coast down to the Coromandel Peninsula. An ambition for later in the journey is to visit Charley and Janet Hedges in the tiny town of Ohura, in King Country, in the distant shade of the 9,000-ft volcano Mount Taranaki.

After this we should turn north to return to Auckland for the flight on to the Cook Islands, Tahiti and the west coast of the USA.