Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, involve me and I will understand.

One additional option for travellers when visiting Hokianga is the Footprints Experience, where you are led on a guided tour through the Waipoa forest at night with a local Maori guide. The tour is also listed as one of Lonely Planet's top “Code Green” Eco-tours in the world, so I didn't really feel like it was something I should miss.

Our guide, Koro, brought us through the forest and his stories blended scientific explanations of forest life with Maori legends. We approached Te Matua Ngahere just as the sun was setting. Te Matua Ngahere is the oldest living Kauri tree in the world. The forest vegetation is short in between the viewing platform and the tree, and so the light hits the trunk directly rather than through the regular canopy of leaves throughout the rest of the forest. This made Te Matua Ngahere seem illuminated and slightly ethereal. As we silently looked up at the tree in awe, a Morepork flew over our heads and landed in the branches of a tree closest to where we were standing. The Morepork (what an unfortunate name) is the only owl indigenous to New Zealand. Seeing the owl was the first sign of the approaching night as the bird is nocturnal.

We walked back to the trail head in the twilight, and when we arrived at Tane Mahuta, the largest Kauri tree in the world, it was dark. Tane Mahuta is Maori for “Lord of the Forest”, and is named after the god who successfully separated his parents who were locked in an eternal embrace. By separating his parents, he brought light to the world and life began. Once again, this is a badly summarized “Danielle verison” of the Maori creation story. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

As Koro shared these stories under Tane Mahuta, I was looking up to take in the whole tree. When Koro stopped talking to let his words sink in, we were engulfed in silence. You may remember just two weeks ago when I hiked up to the Sunrise Hut and was literally blown over by the force of the wind. The Waipoa forest is huge and full of leaves and branches ready to catch a breeze, but nothing was moving. Excuse me as I get a bit touchy-feely here, but the accentuated stillness of the forest compared to the intense juxtaposition of my last windy encounter with nature rooted me to my immediate surroundings and to the absolute present state of my being. My mind is constantly buzzing as to 'what will come next' – from my plans for tomorrow, a month from now, or even a year. I even dream about it. At that moment though, all of that fell away. Even though I was with 5 others, a silence as intense as the one we shared is hard to come by. In Edmonton, the noises from the city are always present. In the backpackers I have been frequenting for the past two months, there is always someone wandering around at any time of day. Even in the forest during the day, there is the crunching of the leaves underneath your feet, the calling of birds, and the sound of the wind in the trees.

But the Waipoa was in a state of absolute tranquil, unmoving stillness.

Koro broke the silence with a prayer to end our evening, but halfway through, he stopped himself and shouted “Kiwi!” For a full minute we listened to the call of a nearby endangered Kiwi bird before saying goodbye to the forest and each other to head back into the world.

“We are only said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

Kauri Trees – Sandboarding – Lunchtime Swim in Paradise – Cape Reinga – 90 Mile Beach

No visit to the Bay of Islands is complete without a day trip up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand. In Maori tradition, when people die their departed souls walk north to Cape Reinga. When they arrive here, they turn to face south, wave goodbye to their home and loved ones, and then drop down over the rocky cliffs which is the entrance to Hawaiki, the afterlife. That's a summarized “Danielle” version, but I had to record it here because I find it such a beautiful way to say goodbye to life and greet death. Cape Reinga was at the end of the day though, and I need to start at the beginning.

The bus took off bright and early, leaving the backpackers before 7:30. Full day ahead! Our first stop was the Manginangina, a Kauri tree forest that had Kauri trees a lot older than the ones in Whangerei. There was one tree that you would easily need 10 people joining hands to reach all the way around the trunk. I can't get over how beautiful the forests are here. I've wandered through some great urban forested parks in Europe, but those ones always feel very influenced by civilization – carved stone steps here, a perfectly straight line of trees there.. In New Zealand you really get back to the rugged design of mother nature. I suppose it's the same in Canada, but the forests are greener on the other side (literally actually, New Zealand is mainly rainforest).

From Manginangina, we continued north to our next stop at the sand dunes. The bus drove through a stream and right onto the hard sand at the base of the dunes, and then our driver Spike opened up the bus luggage area to reveal 30 body boards for us to run up the hill with, and then zoom down on again. I had been on sand dunes in September when I went to the Oregon Coast with Trish, Jill, Patrice, and John. So I had fresh memories of how annoying it is to climb a mountain made of sand. As usual, taking the slow and steady method helped me make it up to the top of the hill eventually. Spike explained the technique we were supposed to be using, and he helped by giving everyone a good push as they took off. Rachel, my bus seat buddy, was a bit nervous. I tried calming her down by saying “It's just like toboganning!” But the poor English girl had never been tobogganning. Eventually, it was my turn. No one had crashed yet, but I felt I would be the one since I am incredibly uncoordinated with things like this (read: skateboard = broken ankle, toboggan + tree = destroyed knee, etc) and was mentally preparing for the worst. As Spike pushed me down, 20 odd years of tobogganning experience took over and I made it down the hill without a problem – I even slid all the way down to the stream! After my first walk up, I was positive that it would be my last. I could not be bothered to climb the damn hill again. But the first ride down was so exhilarating that I quickly scurried up the hill again – this time with my camera, and Spike followed me down on his own board, recording me the whole way down. If I could find decent internet, I might even be able to post it.

The sand dunes were gorgeous, but Spike managed to one up them by bringing us to our lunch stop at Taputaputa Bay. This is a small beach on the Pacific Ocean with golden sand, crystal clear water, and waves high enough to make body surfing fun. I jumped right in for a lunch time swim, wishing I could just live there.

Sadly, we had to continue on, and took the final stretch of highway north to Cape Reinga. The car park is about a 20 minute walk from the top of the country, but the scenery along the way is so gorgeous that I didn't even notice. When I signed up for this tour, the brochure boasted that I would be able to see “the clash of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean as they cross over”. This sounds like a load of poetic bull shit. Oceans are human concepts, water doesn't care where an imaginary line is drawn, it's just water. Right? Wrong. There was an area of the sea that was quite choppy, and on a closer look, I could see two distinct sides with waves crashing in opposite directions. It was so cool. Brochure, you keep up that beautiful poetic bullshit. Show me more. Other than that, the Cape had a cool lighthouse and a signpost showing the directions and distances to various famous cities around the world. True to the Maori culture steeped in the land, the area was peaceful and calm, and felt very sacred. I could have stayed much longer.

But we needed to get back to Paihia for the night, so we started the long trek back down south. This was made shorter by driving along 90 Mile Beach. Yup, we drove right on the sand. At low tide, the sand is hard enough that any vehicle can drive down it. Apparently it's recognized as a New Zealand highway, so you can even get a ticket on the beach if you're driving like an idiot or going over the 100km/h speed limit. We stopped for pictures at one point and I ran into the water, just so I can say I've swam in two oceans in one day. Check!

The day was closed out by a trip to the Ancient Kauri kingdom, which is a gift shop and showroom made of Kauri tree objects. The only thing worth mentioning is that the store is built around a Kauri tree trunk that has been turned into a staircase. As in you walk up inside the tree. The trunk is so thick that they literally just carved out a spiral staircase into it. I felt a bit childish as my only thought was “I want one”. Our last stop was in Mangonui for some fish and chips, which was a perfect way to end the day. After the sun, sand, and climbing, I'm exhausted and ready for a solid sleep. In sum: perfect day.

The internet for tourists in this country really does not lend itself to uploading pictures – check back and I'll see if I can add some photographs to my entries when I have some solid bandwidth!

Tamaki Cultural Village

After Hobbiton, we headed on to our stop for the night: Rotorua. While running around all the hobbit holes was completely worthwhile, the afternoon spent there meant we didn't have much time to see Rotorua, since our evening booked up with tickets to the Tamaki Maori Culture Show complete with a delicious Hangi.

The tour started at our hostel when a driver picked us up and started explaining how our evening would go, and chose one of our strong men to be a chief. Now I realize they are being true to history, but I really wish they would have offered women the chance to be chief so we could pretend genders were equal here in 2011. Then again, being a chief seemed a bit intimidating, and I guess I'm happy they didn't offer me the chance.  Moving on..

Three groups of tourists filed into an entrance area lead by their 3 chosen male chiefs to meet the tribe. The Maori males did their best to intimidate us with chanting, yelling, dancing, and advancing at us with spears. Graham, one of our chiefs, accepted the Maori gift of peace (a fern) and we were welcomed into their home to meet with the tribe and see how they would have lived before colonization. Their home was an accurate representation of the small huts they lived in before Europeans arrived - low buildings with small doors. Sometimes the huts were on stilts. The Maori were all very well informed, and each had a great sense of humour. They were joking about how they didn't live in huts anymore due to things like running water and Facebook. As someone who worked in Edmonton's historical park, I sympathized with them on this point as I've been asked if I live in the Fort at night. We wandered through the village and learned about music, games, dances, and other things they did with their time.

A bell rang, and we all gathered near the area where they cook the food known as the Hangi. In the morning, they placed meat (beef, lamb) and vegetables (carrots, potatoes) deep into the ground over stones heated by fire. The food cooked throughout the day, and we watched as they dug it up, steam rising from the ground and the delicious smell of food filling the air.

While they prepared the food, we were entertained by choreographed Maori song and dance (they dance with Poi which I have always found really cool) and told stories of some of their legends.

Finally, they called us into the dining hall. The wait did not disappoint. The food filled two tables, and Chantal and I celebrated our good life decisions by sharing a bottle of wine and eating way too much. Wonderful.