23 Jan - Warkworth to Paihia

We left Warkworth at 9.30 and stopped off just north of Wellsford for coffee and a sandwich. The café we found was by a single track railway line which only takes freight. The lights were flashing when we arrived and we waited for ages with no sign of a train……then they just stopped and we could cross! Don’t know if it was a phantom train or if we just fell asleep waiting so long!!










The café had an amazing display of local crafts including some patchwork which was really beautiful (Tom took some photos). We met some people who were also on holiday and one of them was from Cambridge – small world yet again.

Further north after the main highway splits, the traffic was very light and the roads are much more winding and hilly but the weather started to deteriorate and when we reached Whangarei, it poured. We had intended to walk to the Falls there but decided against that and had haircuts instead! - an interesting alternative!

Then we continued north towards Paihia, stopping at Kawakawa where Tom said there was an interesting toilet! We drove down the high street and couldn’t find it so we parked at the railway station where there was a café on the platform. While we were having a coffee we were approached by a uniformed gentleman who wanted to know if we would like to take a trip on the train. It turned out that it was a private railway and they were running short trips with old rolling stock. It really was a short trip as we only went about half a km backwards into the countryside then we stopped and went forwards through the station and into the middle of the Kawakawa high street where the track runs between the 2 lanes of traffic. Having created chaos going that way, we then reversed and did the same in the other direction back to the station! All in all, about 20 minutes for NZ$2 (80p).

While on the train, Tom had spotted the toilets so we walked up the high street and “spent a penny”. These are the Hundertwasser Toilets, so called because they were the first building designed by Frederick Hundertwasser in the southern hemisphere and were opened in 1999. They are amazing. All the walls are decorated with a mosaic of broken tiles and glass in a modernistic design, with the windows consisting of coloured glass bottles embedded in concrete so giving a similar effect as stained glass in churches. The columns outside the building look like bead necklaces on a huge scale. On the way back to the car, we saw the St John ambulance station and called in to say hello. St John provide emergency ambulances throughout NZ and each is manned 24/7 by a paid attendant and a volunteer. We spent 15 mins being shown round the station before heading north once more.

We reached Paihia at about 3.30 and stopped at the tourist info for details of Waitangi. There wasn’t any despite Waitangi being probably the most important place in NZ’s history and only a short distance away. So we just drove on and found the Waitangi Treaty Grounds information centre. It’s one of those places that gives you the feeling of being somewhere very special. Beautifully kept, with a superb audio-visual display telling the story of the build up to the signing of the Treaty which laid the foundation for the integration of Maori and the British peoples, still adhered to to this day – pretty much anyway.

As we had stopped more than we’d planned, we decided that we’d stay in Paihia for the night and found a Motel with (hooray) wireless internet access, which was fine until the service failed after about 40 mins.. We had super fish and chips sitting outside on the sea front – the rain had stopped by then! And wandered back to our room stopping off on the way for Tom to buy YET ANOTHER HAT!!

It’s now 11.00pm and we’ll say goodnight, speak to you all again tomorrow (we hope).