Uretiti, Dargaville and Bayly's Beach

 I have been very slack at writing my blog lately and I do apologize. I will try to do better in the future. 

We are enjoying moving about more since leaving Pataua.

We stayed at Uretiti DOC camp for 3 and ½ weeks. We had nice easy access to the beach. We don't know where the days go, but we are filling them up ok. We went for a stroll along the beach most days. We go left one day and right the next, just to mix it up a bit. The sand is very firm at low tide, so we biked on it a couple of times too.

My cousin, Adele and her husband, Russell, also live in their van. They came to Uretiti too. It was nice to have a catch up

When we were at Uretiti DOC camp we went to look at the Waipu caves. Quite interesting with stalactites hanging down and some stalagmites growing upwards. It has a river running through it, so Eddie and I got wet feet. We didn't go very far in. Afterwards, Adele and I wandered around the little path that went up the hill above the cave. There were some great lime stone formations to admire. The lime stone stack in the picture on the left, was really a lot bigger than the picture shows.

Entrance to the cave

Limestone stacked up

Eddie  having a wander around the rocks

The stream coming out of the cave

Since leaving Uretiti we have spent 2 nights in Dargaville and 1 at Kai Iwi Lakes.

The lakes were quite interesting. They are only filled with rain water. The base is an impervious clay that holds the water in. They are very low at the moment due to 2 dry summers and a dry winter. You can see how big the beach is. The water normally comes up to the edge of the board walk that Eddie is standing on in the photo above. Hopefully it will rain more this winter and they will fill up again. The biggest one is 37 metres deep at its deepest point. There are rainbow trout in it, as well as the native fishes and fresh water crayfish. We did a bike ride around the biggest one, called Taharoa. It was just over 7 ks around it. We saw a man trying to catch a trout, but wasn't having much luck.

Hotel

At Dargaville we stayed at the NZ motor caravan association parking place. The old hotel has been there since the 1870's. We spoke to the man who runs the hotel. He said he was very proud and honoured to live and work in such a lovely old building.

Band Rotunda Dargaville

  They have a great museum in Dargaville. A selection of photos below. There is a great history of gum digger in this area. 

Wooden statue of a gum digger

the gum is washed after it is dug up

A gum digger in front of his shack

We came to Bayly's beach near Dargaville a couple of Saturdays ago. We stayed there for a week. There are huge clay cliffs along the beach, which I have never seen before. Russel and Adele were there too, as well as Eddie's friend from Swaps. Eddie caught a kahawai on Monday on his fish finder and Russell and Bruce caught 3 on Wednesday morning. We had a fish dinner all together that night with so much fish.

Eddie on Bayly's Beach

Clay cliffs

Water pattern in the sand.