#rangiriri

Tièmoko Koné - Rangiriri

Te Kauwhata to Auckland Although I could have headed on up the motorway, I decided to do some exploring. Just south of Te Kauwhata was a place called Rangiriri where a historic battle was fought between the Maori and the Europeans during the land wars. They have a cemetery there to remember it, although all the graves are for the Europeans who were killed. I think the Maori remains have been moved to a significant site elsewhere. Across the highway, I visited lake Whangape which was an amazingly still, untouched lake with only one public access point for boats, and the water quality is too low to swim in. There was a couple there in a tardis motorhome who were super friendly and we got chatting about NZ, and then their daughter who's in England 'near some town called Stratford' ;) maybe we're neighbours! Heading up north vaguely parallel to the highway I visited Vivian Falls, a little off the beaten track but marked on my road tripper app by other travellers. I wasn't sure about the winding farm roads to get there, but then it was only a two minute walk from the car park and it was a super pretty waterfall, with loads of great rocks for scrambling and a sign dedicated to the Maori history of the area, where a young man had used the falls to train his men before going off to fight the big cannibal leader of the main tribe. I did make the sensible decision to remove a few items of clothing before scrambling on the rocks, but then balanced this by making the less sensible decision to try and climb under the waterfall and getting all the clothes I'd kept soaking wet. This would have been less of a problem if my jeans and leggings hadn't gone in the sea the day before, so I ended up driving to Auckland in my last pair of dry trousers. I thought I'd head straight to the house to dry off, but then the sun came out all of a sudden with blue skies and warmth coming through the windscreen and I thought I had to take advantage! I checked my route up and found the Auckland botanic garden just off the main highway. On the scale of botanic gardens, it's pretty high! A huge area, with a whole section set aside for native bush and then a series of different gardens including roses, winter flowers, South African plants and a big emphasis on education and children. A really nice place to spend an afternoon, although I'll admit I didn't spend much time in the native bush section - when you've been hiking in it for a month you sort of lose the novelty! :)