New Zealand-Day 2&3 (Tue Feb 25-Wed Feb 26)

Auckland to "Bay of Islands"

We drove up to "Bay of Islands" from Auckland yesterday, learned a lot of history, saw exotic birds and vegetation, plus great scenery.

The Kauri tree(2nd picture) use to be all over the north part of the north island, but is now almost totally gone because of over cutting.  The only trees they can now use are those buried in the ground 10s of thousands of years ago by a giant tsunami.  These tree are even bigger than the tree we saw, and are still wood, not fossilized.   The wood is beautiful.  The fish in the last picture are sea bass.

A kauri tree

Old time commode made of kauri wood

Flowers are quite common

A pukeko

Mauri war canoe

Fig tree in Bay of Islands town of Russel

Fun in the bay (not us)

Sea bass