jane had read in a guidebook that there was a really lovely local red wood forest, so after breakfast we headed over for a stomp
this ended up being a two hour stomp up to a fantastic view point which i seem to have avoided taking any photos of !
along the way we got to see lots of information about native trees including this which i think is a ponga, or ‘silver fern’ the leaf of which is proudly worn by the all blacks. and by the way, it’s a prime contender for a flag if/when NZ finally dumps the queen !
here’s an interesting fact – as the leaves drop off they make a nice little sheltered ’emergency hut’ underneath. keep that in mind next time you get stuck in a new zealand rainforest.
this is a local beastie we found in a geocache
and it’s the first forest i’ve been in which smelt of peppermint. we kept getting whiffs of it all over the place due to the white peppermint trees. very strange
after walking round the forest for ages we then went and walked round the 3d maze for ages. jane and i versus esther and kezia. jane and i won of course. after all they are only kids (!). but it was a very close thing.
we took it nice and slow whilst the girls ran around like mad things.
and that i think was the end of day 7. i think we might have gone in to town for a bit of a wander as i seem to have taken lots of pictures of shop mannequins !
one thing we did do each evening was play a game of pictionary. which was jolly good fun for all the fambily.