logs be carried downstream when the gate was released. The water behind the model dam was the most awesome colour of turquoise, and amazingly clear!! As if to balance the harm done by the loggers, in the next field was a new plantation of Kauri trees. Perhaps in a thousand years time this may be a handsome forest again!!

We had a look at another couple of campsites near Thames, but one was horrid and the other had closed for the winter. It was becoming obvious that the season here was drawing to an end, and to be honest, we’d got to the point where we were just killing time, and were ready for a new adventure. New Zealand had been one of our favourite places, but the time to move on had come. Still, there was still four more nights left, and we’d spied a campsite on the way back to Auckland which was a bit more expensive, but looked nice and advertised a free hot mineral pool. We weren’t too

hopeful as previous sites with hot mineral pools had been nasty, but were very pleasantly surprised with what we found. Not only was the pool huge, it was hot and sheltered and open until ten at night!! The water was truly heavenly!! All round it was one of the best campsites we’d stayed in, the kitchen was superb - there were free lemons from the trees outside, and even a fresh herb garden!! I was in my element cooking us up a feast!! We’d parked next to this old New Zealander called Digger, who lived in his campervan, well more of a bus really. He was really friendly, as were all the people there. In fact we liked it so much we decided to stay an extra night and make one last roast dinner and take advantage of the hot pools!!

The last two nights in New Zealand were spent right next to the sea at Takapuna Beach in Auckland. We didn’t really do a lot apart from sorting out all our stuff