December 2012 – March 2013
As we got settled into our new home base in Opua, we started to do some exploring outside of our Bay of Islands neighborhood and seeing the sights of Northland New Zealand, both the major sites that any travel guide would cover and the lesser sights that only a local guidebook would cover. We eventually got around to some places that were barely mentioned anywhere, stopping by a spot just to take a look only to be taken aback by how lovely it was.
A good example of this scenario was Haruru falls. We had passed by a sign for this many times but thought it was just a suburban neighborhood off the main highway, basically because none of our guidebooks had mentioned it. Finally sometime told us there are actually falls there; plus there’s a lovely back road to the area we might enjoy. He was right; we enjoyed it very much! -Cyndi
