Devonport and Totara North

Our last day in Auckland we took a short ferry over to Devonport which is an old navy base. We climbed up to the top of North Head and got some incredible views of Auckland city, Devonport and a few other islands in the area. We were just in awe it was so beautiful. We took a ton of pictures and ate some chips while sitting on the hill admiring the view.

The next day we moved on to our first WWOOFing experience in Totara North. Our first week of WWOOFing was a great one. We were working with Ramona on her little piece of land and adorable little home. She had a little organic veggie garden that we harvested some fruits and veggies from. We did some wood clearing and planted a little rock garden. We looked after her two adorable children, Taeo (5) and Nevaeh (2), and their little dog Honey a bit as well. The views from Ramona’s house were so incredible.

We had a few incredible experiences during our stay in Totara North. The first was a short but incredible visit to the beach at Tapuaetahi and the little lagoon called Taronui Bay. The water was such an incredible array of blues and turquoise. We pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves because it was a private beach our host had access to. We walked over to Taronui Bay and had our first ocean swims. It was a tad chilly but so beautiful. We loved the place so much, we were definitely in heaven!

Our second big adventure was walking the Wairakau Stream Track to a little swimming hole. The walk up to the track was such steep hills we weren’t sure we would even make it. But once the real track started, it was just amazing. The track itself was all up and down, over rocks and streams with a steep hill down one side. The track was narrow but so fun to walk on. The forest we were walking through looked like it came straight out of Jurassic Park with huge fern trees and a ton of cicada’s chirping away.

Then we got to the swimming hole which was so beautiful. The water was freezing and it took us a while to work up the guts to dive in, and once we did we could only stay in for about one minute. It was such a cool experience!

Our final big adventure in Totara North was the trek up the Taratara mountain. We started at around 7:00pm so it was much cooler and by the time we reached the top it was almost sunset. We couldn’t stay up there long because we wanted to have enough light as we trekked back to the bottom. This trail was even crazier and more intense than Wairakau. It started with a not very well marked trek through tall grass and boulders and turned into a very steep and somewhat slippery hike up the mountain. It was a good thing we had good hiking shoes on! When we finally got to the top the views were insane. Definitely worth the crazy hike! Apart from being in buildings or on roller coasters or planes I had never been up so high in my life! I was shaking in my boots a little bit! Such an amazing experience!

Today we are headed back to Auckland and tonight we will meet our next WWOOF hosts in Swanson. We are looking forward to another week of crazy experiences and meeting cool new people!