Driving Along

View of the Coromandel

I don't know how many times I said "stop the car!" to take a picture like this. Most often it happened near sheep, they're soooo cuuuuttteeee

Roadside fauna

Port Jackson Campground

Our campsite the second night, Port Jackson Campground on the Coromandel. We had to drive along a  gravel road for about an hour to get here, but it was so worth it.

Sunset

Slacklining the next morning

On The Road

Our first night of camping- oh yeah! Thanks for the tube tent dad!

View from the road - just pull over!

Self timer

Typical scenery

Oooh la la

Climbing a Boulder

Lake Waikaremoana

Gisbourne

Gisbourne is a cool hippie town right at the end of the East Cape. We had fun playing disc golf for free at the I-Site (every town has one, they provide info for tourists) and doing a fun walk to the top of a hill.  

Bridge crossing on our walk

 City view

Devonport and Auckland

 

View of Auckland from the Devonport Ferry Building

Sailboats at King Edward's Parade in Devonport

Night view from the sky tower! We had dinner there.

Rosco's pad

A friendly kiwi (thats what they call New Zealanders) invited us to stay at his house! It was awesome.

Miniature horses!!!

Kiwidog

Cuuuuttteee

:-)

Rosco and Kiwidog. Above his porch is a boat he's refurbishing.

On The Road

Pretty church by the road

View from bathroom window at a beach

Best Youth Hostel

Out of our 2 weeks on the road, we spent 5 nights indoors, the rest camping.

This youth hostel was $30/person per night for a double room. Use of kitchen and kayaks provided!

View from our room

Hammocks!

Animals!

So many sheep!

Baaaaaaaa

Neeeiiiggghhh

East Cape Lighthouse

We hiked up the 600 steps around 4pm when the sun was shining bright. 

No one else was there!

East Island

Here you can see the lighthouse on the right and the East Island on the left.

We loved it so much we came back twelve hours later to watch the sunrise. We didn't have a clock but it must have been 4am when we climbed the steps. We watched the night sky with the clearest stars for about an hour before the moon rose, a glowing orange orb with a tiny bright white smile. I was kind of delirious and thought it was a space ship. We must have watched the moon for at least 30 minutes before the sky started to change, subtle gradients of blue and orange . . . and the sun rose. The new moon disappeared.

It was cold so early in the morning!

The view toward the mountains

Towards the coast