A road trip I'll never forget - Part 2

Continuing on from my last post, after being rescued by a couch surfer from sleeping on the streets I was about to be taken on a roadtrip I will remember for a very long time...

We set off at about 6am for a very eventful day.

The first stop was nothing special, we stopped to have a drink of water, some more chocolate and to simply stretch our legs. But already the countryside was starting to show and the roads were starting to wind there way around the hills. At this point John our host mentioned we were on our way to see what was supposingly the biggest tree in New Zealand.

We made our way deeper into the forest. John loved to throw his Mercedes around the corners. Poor me in the back, I nearly threw up!

Thankfully we came to our first stop...the second biggest tree. I had no idea they were so close!

Here it is

When I first caught a glimpse of this beast through the bushes I thought it was a concrete wall!

It is in fact a giant kauri tree called Te Matua Ngahera and although it's not the biggest, it's certainly the fattest with a girth of over 16m! That's 52 feet just walking around the trunk. You can't get close to it however and the picture above is probably about 20 meteres away. What a fat beast!

The tree is estimated to be 1,200 and 2,000 years old!

Now for the next stop...the biggest tree.

Again, it may look like I'm standing right next to it but nope, this is also another 20m or so behind me.

It's another Kauri tree called Tāne Mahuta or Lord of the forest and when you approach it, you can see why. There's nothing in the vicinity that even comes close to this giant.

Unfortunately when I was there, the top part of the tree was missing. It was believed to of been struck by lightning, caught fire and burned away. Having said this the tree is 45.2m high with a girth of 15.44m

Trying to get the whole thing in the shot even with half missing was near impossible. Again, this one was between 12,000 and 2,000 years old.

We headed off to our next destination, winding our way out of the forest and towards the coast.

We headed for a bay near a small town called Opononi to have lunch. What I didn't know is that there was a famous celebraty in the form of a animal that the town was known for...

Opononi

This animal was "Opo", a famous bottle nosed dolphin who was extremely playful and even let children ride on it's back.

When Opo died, they built a statue of her in memory which was just outside the cafe where we had lunch.

Don't you just love dolphins!

For lunch, I had fish and chips and was dared to try their hot sauce...

Now I'm not very good with hot sauces but reading the lable kind of made me think twice..

"No responsibility taken for misuse or overconsumption of this product"

It was hot to say the least..

From then on John asked me if I wanted to drive as he had cleary noticed I get travel sick quite easily but when I'm the one driving, i don't...very odd.

So I did, that's right a complete stranger let me drive his Mercades with no insurance and had never seen me drive. He simply asked, "are you a good driver?"

"Yes" I replied as he simply handed me the keys. Who is this guy?

Next up we made our way east to the other coastline.

And stopped at a peacefull waterfall on the way

By the time we reached the East coast it was late evening. We stopped somewhere in Waitangi, the bay of islands and hopped aboard a floating raft to watch the evening sky turn and take in the atmosphere.

It was pure bliss.

We then started heading south back towards Auckland. On the way he took us through a small town called Kawakawa to see wait for it...

The toilets 😅

Apperently the Hundertwasser toilets were quite famous due to their unique design. We needed a toilet stop so why not. He wasn't lying. The outside had tribal pillars and decorations.

The inside..

A weird crooked allyway with uneven tiles and glass bottles and blocks in the wall. Very peculiar..

It was now dark outside so I assumed that was all to see, after all it was getting on for midnight.

I was wrong, very wrong. The next destination was in the middle of nowhere, there was no phone signal, no homes nearby, just a few dirt roads and tall grass. If he wanted to kill us, now would of been the perfect time. But he didn't, instead he explained he was taking us to one of the glow worm caves.

Waipu Caves
Now up until this point I had actually already seen the famous glow worm caves in Waitomo when I was Black water rafting. Nothing could beat that experience surely? Again, I was very wrong.

It was 2am by the time we arrived at the cave. There were a bunch of campervans outside where everyone else there was obviusly asleep, but not us.

Bare feet, we headed into the pitch black darkness. Me and John had torches to help light the way. We had to go bare foot because the trek involved wading through freezing cold water which was luckily only shin deep.

The banks were extremelly slippery as it was essentially wet rock with wet compact sand ontop. Almost like when you wet clay and it gets all slippery and slimey.

We went though about 3 chambers before entering a big open chamber. He then told us to turn our torches off.

What we saw was a sight I'll never forget.

The whole ceiling was littered with glow worms, hundreds of them. I thought it couldn't get any better. Wrong again.

We stood there in complete silence for what must of been 30 minutes and everytime we looked somewhere else we saw more and more glow worms. It easily reached the thousands by now and could be best described as a night sky without any light polution. Thoasands of stars just hanging there. What an unforgettable moment!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the perfect picture to help visualize it (not without paying $35.00) but hopefully this will suffice.

After stating in the cave for over an hour we headed back to his house.

You would think the story ends there which I guess it does but there's much more to this trip then the actual trip itself. There's someone more important then everything I've showed you so far.

John

Something seemed odd about him...

He let us stay at his house for free.

He let us eat and drink for free

He let us stay an extra night

He let us drive his car

And when we offered him money for petrol he refused. I held out the 100 dollars between us and he refused to accept. Why?

Fast forward a few weeks later and we discovered some very sad news in the form of a message on facebook. His familly had written to inform that he had past away with reasons unknown. This news brang tears to my eyes.

I believe we knew though, he seemed very lonely and depressed despite his best effort to crack jokes and be "upbeat" we could sense something was wrong.

We believe he comitted suicide 😔

John was quite honestly the most trusting and nice person I've ever met. To go through all that effort just for two strangers off couchsurfing and give us an experience we'll never forget.

John single handidly changed my mind and opnion about people in the world. After seeing nothing but knife crimes, rape, acid attacks and murder on the news. I was convinced there were no good people left in the world. I trusted no one and I trained in Krav Maga and other self defence methods with my gaurd constantly up as I walked the streets, ready to harm or even kill anyone who dared assault me.

But meeting him taught me a valuable lesson.

There are still plenty of decent people out there, they just don't get attention from the press.

I'll never forget what he did for us that weekend.

R.I.P John

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