North

Well, we have been relentlessly moving on up North from Miranda. After some more quality time in the heated pool, we left Miranda Springs and started back along the Coastal Pacific Highway after reading that it was a 'Thing to do before you die' route.It was nice and all, but really? A must-see? Alex and my official stance on this particular route is that it is mostly propaganda anyways - it is nearly always away from the coastline, and it merely rambles through pleasant green countryside.Not to mention, I was pulled over by a completely scary-looking bunch of police officers, who wanted me to speak my full name aloud, before letting me go on my way. Alex and I were mystified by the whole thing until we turned the radio on and realised NZ has just passed a law for the police to do random drugs tests on drivers. So yeah, that box I spoke into? Not a dictaphone recording my name as evidence in some heinous crime, just a drugs detector! Nice to know NZ police think I look high. Humph.
We eventually came to the point where we had to go on through Auckland. We stopped in Manukau first and were bowled over by the amount of people and civilisation that awaited us there. We were actually in awe of the mall, just because we have been away from such things for a good long while. They had 'Sooshi' - fruit icecream rolled up in dried fruit and then fruit jelly added to it to look like, you guessed it, Sushi. It fascinated us. They had whole counters devoted to baked goods. We sniffed the baked goodness as it wafted around the foodcourt. They had skate shops and games shops which drew Alex towards them with unholy power. I was attracted, as if I was something metallic looking at a magnet, towards shops with shoe sales and sparkly things. It was quite fun, if a bizarre way of spending an hour.
We battled it through the busiest traffic we have ever come across in NZ, along the 3-lane motorway across Auckland's Harbour Bridge. We sighted the Skytower and it was like coming home, as it was the first thing we saw when we first arrived in NZ. Such an odd feeling!
Within 10kms of Auckland, the traffic had thinned right down again, no cars were to be seen apart from the odd truck. It was as we were drifting up into the Northland, that we saw the sign. 'SheepWorld' it blared out at us. We had to stop and see. It was mandatory, having seen the sign. That was when we saw them. We had parked in the carpark, we were about to go in and have a look at prices, we heard a 'baaa', we turned.

 
An entire field of flourescent, bright, radiant pink sheep stood on our right. Pink sheep! They were day-glo! They were spectacular.
We wandered around the shop for a bit, but decided to skip the park itself (despite their having alpacas) as the ticket was quite pricey and included events that had long since finished by the time we rocked up at about 2.30. But still. We saw pink sheep, and that was hilarious enough to entertain us for quite a while.
We carried on going, aiming for Whangerai, but eventually stopping at Mangawhai Heads Beach Reserve instead.
(Sidenote: I keep forgetting to add this - The Maori pronunciation of these words is very different to how we see them spelt. 'Wh' = 'F' sound, the 'g''s are soft and bouncy sounding and you pretty much slur it all together then make it sound musical. Go with it. As such, 'Whangerai' sounds more like 'Fang-er-AY'. Its fun to play with, although you mostly get odd looks if you do it in public).
We stayed at the Beach Reserve for the night, as it was an empty car park with pretty cool views. The carpark was crazy, it had some weird parking system that no-one could actually figure out, so everyone in it was parked ina different way, at odd angles. It was quite amusing, especially when one elderly couple in a massive campervan started audibly complaining outside our window this morning that they were unable to park correctly, because of where we were parked. I should point out at this time that the carpark was huge, and at this point occupied by only three cars, including us.
Northland is rainforest extradinaire and as such, it has been humid and drizzly since we arrived. Doh. We continue however, in the knowledge that we have but one week remaining and Northland is the last part to tick off on our roadtrip.
On our drive, we came across a rather disturbing and unusual aspect of this area. Near Warkworth, the whole country side is peppered with metallic sculptures of farmyard animals. This is patently uneccessary, as NZ has more than enough real-live farm animals to maintain. Despite this however, we have seen metal chickens, goats, sheep, alpacas, cows and one very scary, freakish goat/cow hybrid monstrosity that lurked out suddenly from its vantage point of a hill and caused us to fear what we would find aorund the bend in the road.
This morning, we set off for Whangerai, looking forward to what the guidebook painted as a pleasant little seaside town with many free distractions for tourists. However, driving through it, it was more of an industrial town, with confusing roundabouts. We went to Pak 'n' Save for muffins and abandoned the place, heading out to the coast to find a campsite. We have the need to feel a bit more grounded at the moment, less transitory. We have lucked out with a lovely green place, cheap and fully kitted out with kitchens and bathrooms. The sea is breaking on the bay not ten metres away from our car and we can see right around the headland, following the curve of the land.

We have, in a moment of foresightedness, planned our itinerary for the remaining days in Newt (*sob*) and shall therefore, hopefully, be able to take things easy and absorb the best of the Northland.

We've added a new batch of pictures to Flickr, so feel free to check those out!