Entries about trees

I really was going to try to combine Tasmania into one or maybe even two posts, but here I am on the third post! And the third national park, Mount Fields National Park. A commonly missed national park, it's right outside Hobart and relatively easy to get to. It features waterfalls, giant ancient trees, wildlife, and much more!

Standing inside trees...

We stopped at several different waterfalls, and stayed at one for lunch.


Gourmet lucnh...

These trees were so massive!

I found one that had been hollowed out by a fire, and, after calling out to all the poisonous things not to kill me, promptly climbed inside!

It was hollow as far up as I could see...

We walked around the lake.

And even made friends with an echidna!

And of course, it being Australia...there was an awesome warning sign!

This is a miscellaneous collection of pictures and maybe brief stories from the North Island that didn't fit anywhere else.

While in Hawke's Bay we drove up to the lookout and there were some gorgeous views!

While in Hawke's Bay, you have to go to at least a couple winerys and do some wine tasting. We went to a couple places, and one gave us a tour which was interesting to learn about some of the wine making process.

In Gisborne we dragged ourselves out of bed quite early in the morning to see the sunrise. Sunrises are cool but the special point of this one was that Gisborne is the first town in the world to see the sunrise!

Our hostel was right across the street from the water, so we had gorgeous views from our bedroom window...

Just outside of Gisborne there's the longest pier in the southern hemisphere. Well cool. We had to go check it out! At 660m (almost a quarter mile!) in length, it offers a nice walk out over the water and several fishing and jumping activities, if you're into that sort of thing.

We drove up to the northern tip of the north island and did a tour to Cape Reinga. Our bus driver was crazy, but it was cheap for New Zealand and we got to see a lot.

This involved everything from hiking to a lighthouse which is the official northern most point.

To seeing the Tasman Sea meet the Pacific Ocean

There were neat views and beaches below...

We stopped by some huge sand dunes, for those that wanted to climb up and sand board down.

And our bus went off roading and drove down 90 Mile Beach (though it's really only 55 miles or so)

Our last stop before Auckland was the Kauri forest. These Kauri trees are the largest in New Zealand and roughly 2,000 years old!!

This concludes the New Zealand adventure, now it's back to Australia and on to new places and adventures. (Unless of course I realize I've forgotten something important about New Zealand, then I'll be sure to add it). We covered a lot of ground in New Zealand with 3 different vehicles and over 8,000km driven, and we slept in 32 different beds in 55 days.

Relocation Roadtrip

South Island Roadtrip

North Island Roadtrip

We'll certainly miss New Zealand!!!