Baylys Beach

We got an early start this morning and headed out of The Coromandel about 8:30. The wind howled all night and in listening to the weather report, it sounded like the tail end of a tropical depression was brushing the area. So probably a good time to get away from that part of the coast! Fortunately, since we were headed up the Northland area of the North Island, we didn’t have to drive back through all of the twisty, windy roads we took up to The Coromandel, but were able to cut across, once we got far enough south, to the main highway that runs up through to Auckland and on to the Northland. The drive up was fine, though pretty windy at times. We stopped at a tourist information center just south of Auckland to inquire about the weather conditions further north and the woman was nice enough to call up to another information center in that area to see what they knew. She reported that everything was fine as far as they knew and no roads were closed. So, after filling up and having a quick bite, were back on the road. We got within about 60 km of our holiday park when we came upon a roadblock……yikes! The road maintenance guy explained that a power line was down and the road was closed until further notice and he proceeded to give us some very convoluted directions on how to bypass the road to get where we were going. Geez!!!! We decided we needed a plan B and after looking at our holiday park book, found one just outside of the town of Dargaville, which we had just passed. In looking at the map, it looked like it wouldn’t be that much further to get to the Kauri Forest from there than the original park, so we turned around and headed that direction. The place is pretty nice and not very crowded since it is Sunday night, so that’s good. After parking and plugging in, we took a walk to the beach, which to be honest, was not nearly as impressive as the last beach we were on. This particular beach is a very wide, flat sandy beach on the west side of the island that people can drive on if they want to. Kind of reminded us of Long Beach on the Washington coast, for our Seattle friends. In addition, it was pretty darn windy and the sand was blowing in our eyes at times which wasn’t so fun, but despite all that, we were still able to get a nice long walk in and collect some pretty cool looking shells. So, we’re tucked in for the night and planning on heading to see the famous Kauri trees tomorrow……