It is the Queen’s birthday weekend this weekend (Hooray for the Queen !) so I have Monday off and have also taken Tuesday off as a holiday. A trip to Northland is not he cards.

The first stop on Saturday is  Whangarei Heads to meet up with and old Cardiff Uni friend Clive Lang and his family. I had not seen Clive for 15 years (when he emigrated to New  Zealand) – he has changed very little and is a project engineer with Fonterra at the local Dairy Production plant. It is a ‘lifestyle’ job for Clive – not too taxing allowing him plenty of time to surf and go fishing o his boat.

We had lunch with him (we will return to spend more time with him at some point) before heading on to the Bay of Islands to meet up with Darren a mate I have known since primary school who I have not seen for 7 years. On the way we called in Russell (previously a den of iniquity for sailors and now a quaint and, by NZ standards, historic small port town) and Paiha (the main tourist departure point for boat tours of the Bay of Islands).

We headed on to Darren’s house in KeriKeri (which has a sub-tropical climate allowing madardins, lemons, lime, grapes and olives to be grown). Darren is a serial house builder, having been a stone mason in the UK, and is now on his 3^rd build. Darren and Maree are living with their 3 boys ; Bay (after bay of Islands) aged 6 yrs, Cole (a close approximation to coal) is 3 yr and Locky Boyd (Boyd is an approximation for Boyo) is 1 in a rented house while they build their next house. They provided a fantastic welcome and it was great to renew acquaintances. We watched Wales play abysmally against Australia and agree that Ceri Jones is far from being an international tight-head prop.

On Sunday we are up at 07.30 and head to Paihia to catch a boat tour of the Bay of Islands. It is a blue sky day and very warm (it is now the 3^rd day of winter). The scenery is absolutely spectacular. There are 144 islands in total and a rich Maori history to the area.

We saw seals and penguins but no dolphins. It is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt places we can recall being to. After the boat trip (3 ½ hrs) we head to the Waitangi treaty grounds which is where the British Governor and Maori Chiefs signed the Treaty of the same name. The British view of the treaty was that the Maori were handing over their land in return for protection, the Maori did not share the same interpretation and to this day and with one version of the treaty in English and another version in Maori with several areas where the translation is a little wooly the treaty has resulted endless debate and column inches in the newspapers.

We took a look at the war canoe (room for 140 Maori) and ran around the flagstaff erected when the treaty was signed and subsequently sawn down 3 times by Maori (mirroring my uncle Martyn’s alleged sawing down of a street light in Defynnog when street lighting was introduced to the village – or is Martyn part-Maori ?) .

A visit to a Kauri forest followed. Kauri trees originally covered 1/3 of the North Island but were almost completely felled for their timber. They are truly immense trees. The largest currently standing is 52m tall and has a girth of 14m !!!

On Monday Darren takes a rare day off and we all head up to Cape Reinga the most northerly point on the North Island where the Tasman sea (tourquoise) meets the Pacific (bluey grey). Its a long trip (2 hrs +) but well worth it. We then head south to 90 mile beach on the rugged west coast. Here we have an hour to kill while the tide goes out as we are going to drive down ’90 mile beach’ and the timing has to be spot on.

Once the tide is out we speed off down a sandy river bed (Darren in his Mazda town car) and onto 90 mile beach. The plan is to drive down ninety mile beach on the hard sand left by the retreating sea. Off we go !! It is awesome – the sea on our right is ferocious and we can see the beach vanish into the distance ahead of us. We pass a land yacht and one other car coming in the opposite direction) but otherwise we see no one else for 30 miles. We are cruising at 60 mph and quickly eat up the miles before turning off near Kaitaia where we stop for a coffee and wash the cars down.

On Tuesday we travel back to Auckland completing a round trip of 700 miles. On the way back we stop off in a couple of roadside cafes (this is trucker country and a single steak and chip is enough for Ruth, Ellie, Cari and Meg). We called at Lang Bay for a swim in the sea and then jump on the 20 miles of motorway which leads into Auckland.