D42 -– No room at the inn

At breakfast our host informed us that she’d accidentally booked someone in our room for tonight, even though we’d reserved it long ago. Of course Thomas smiled and said, “No problem.” Hmmm… is there such a thing as being too nice? It was a shame to have to leave, but it was pretty pricey, so perhaps all for the best.

We drove back to Auckland, stopping to take a walk around gorgeous Hokianga Bay,

eat lunch at a nice waterfront café, and take a look around a small local cemetery where there were a number of Maori buried.

We also stopped at the Waipoua Kauri Forest sanctuary, and saw the tallest living Kauri, which is called Tane Mahuta and stands about 168 feet high. Later we saw Te Matua Ngahere, the widest Kauri, with a girth of 56 feet. Both of them are estimated to be about 2000 years old, and it was amazing to stand next to them knowing they’d been around for two millennia.

In Auckland we decided to save some money by staying at a youth hostel called Xbase. We were definitely out of place with all the 20 year-olds running around. When did we become such adults? We had to keep the window open because of the heat, but the downtown noises kept us up. At one point, it sounded like there were people on one of those window washing rigs making their way down from the roof to climb in our window and “get us.” Or at least that’s what my half-asleep mind thought.

-Elva