Day 10 - Friday 16th June - Opononi to Dargaville - Tane Mahuta - Dudson Farm - Donnelly's Crossing

 

Day 10 – Friday 16th June

Opononi to Dargaville - Tane Mahuta - Dudson Farm - Donnelly's Crossing

On leaving the Dolphin Lodge, we missed Patty & Tom at the Dump Station at Omapere and had to double back to find them - eventually.

Trounson Kauri Park – DOC Camp

From Omapere we drove to the Trounson Kauri Park – a DOC Campsite and had lunch. It was a bit damp, shady and cold to stay there for the night so we drove on to:-

Tane Mahuta

A bit further on we found the DOC site for visiting Tane Mahuta – God of the Forest. We had to pass through the gateway with boot scrubs and disinfectant to clean our shoes to make sure that we didn’t bring in any diseases that would affect the Kauris. We had seen quite few examples of dead Kauris on the way there. 

It was only a short walk to the tree – 2,000 years old and looking to be in the prime of life! It was an awe-inspiring sight, both in terms of its age and its size.

Proud Road - Patty & Tom's Farm

From there we drove on to the Proud Road turn off. This was a metalled road that led up the hill to  the farm where Tom & Patty and Gordon & Sue had had their 360-acre dairy farm back in the day. The whole area was beautiful with a 4,000 sq ft house amongst the trees. Three consecutive droughts persuaded them that it was going to be too difficult to make a living there.

Donnelly’s Crossing

The metalled road carried on from their old farm down to Donnelly’s Crossing - a bit derelict now!

NZMCA Park - Dargaville

and then on to the NZMCA Park at Dargaville on the banks for the Kaihu River which runs into the very large North Wairoa River. It was a very large area (in Winter) for so few caravans.

After getting set up we went for a walk downtown Where we found a good coffee bar called “The Good Life”. 

The coffee was good but the scone was cold! We had an interesting conversation with the barista from Manchester about climate change and all sorts. The table that we sat at was covered with a large coloured map of the London Underground.

(Answer - Because outstanding bills are found on both of them)

Went back and had dinner at the campsite.