As we have chosen to literally experience the whole of this country, it has included visiting northlands final gesture the Aupori Peninsula. Travelling along unsealed twisty roads we eventually arrived at a lumpy chunk of 60 million year old volcanic landform - Cape Reinga, believed by the maori to be ‘the place of leaping’ where the spirits of the dead depart! So yes, we’ve finally made it to the top, and as Lee says the real start of our adventure, the only way now is down.The weather wasn’t as glorious as it has been, apparently the worst storm in NZ history was on its way, which fortunately didn’t materialise to that measure after all. As the wind rushed around us at the lighthouse it added to the dramatic site of where the South Pacific and Tasman Sea meet, something that both of us have never witnessed before, two great oceans colliding.One of the attractions up north is to drive down the 90 mile beach, but not wanting to risk getting stuck in sand or being caught in the storm, the word of advice in NZ was to stay away from the coast. So we settled for having a little play on the dunes and going back down the twisty road, there are many more beaches to drive along. The dunes where massive, Lee found an old road sign and tried to sandboard, but not to much success, the sand was too wet. Eventually we ended the long day at a pleasant campsite in Awanui.Our next few days of travelling back down the west coast followed an ongoing theme of stormy weather and mighty Kauri trees.To begin with we visited an operating sawmill, where they cut and shape huge Kauri logs which have been buried in swamps for 30,000 - 50,000 years. The Ancient Kauri Kingdom allows people to visit for free which suits us, and although there were lots of lovely things to buy we were content with admiring the work and checking out the impressive spiral staircase, hewn out of the centre of the largest piece of Kauri trunk ever unearthed. What a project!Getting back on the road and we were almost being blown off so after the short ferry crossing we arrived in Rawene and sheltered in the small quirky town, which I went exploring before the heavens really opened up.Next day we made a brief stop off at Opononi where a dolphin called Opo once visited for the summer in 1955, it played with children in the shallow water and apparently allowed them to ride on her back.Our route passed through Waipoua Forest which is home to Tane Mahuta ‘Lord of the Forest’ the largest kauri tree known, with a trunk girth of nearly 14m, we visited him and some of his friends and just enjoyed being in their presence, they have been made accessible to the public and are protected by board walks which run through the forest, this helps protect the fragile roots. There was an excellent visitor centre which had loads of old pics showing how forestry was done in the past, quite incredible stuff. The road eventually led back to a place of familiarity, we were freedom camping at Waiwera once more.Sunday turned out to be a real treat, as we decided to start the day with a bit of luxury and hit the Waiwera Thermal Resort, which is a network of outside pools natural heated by the underground springs, the warmest of which was 40°C. There was also a series of water rides to enjoy.So thats our brief update. We are currently south of Auckland now and are staying in Coromandel, on the Coromandel Peninsula. We met a great German lad called Marcel at the campsite, who we passed on the road a day earlier, he’s cycling around NZ. We asked him to join us for tea. We also met a lady who has spent a few weeks in Australia and has been in NZ for a couple of weeks now, she is the first English person we’ve met and guess what...she’s from Denton, right near where Lee lives! Typical. We all got chatting and headed down to the pub in town. Me and Lee are going to head to some great white sand beaches tomorrow and the famous ‘Hot Water Beach’, you’ll find out why its called that in the next blog!Speak soonEmma & Leexxx