Kauri Forest Tour with Coromandel Adventures – Day 5

We get a phone call from a lady called Sarni who is running some tours in the Coromandel called Coromandel Adventures. She offers us a trip. She’s literally starting this trip in half an hour and she’s like: “Do you guys want to join us?” And we’re like: “Hells to the yeah!” A tour of the canopy, the rainforest canopy. Mark my words, the rainforest canopy. The important word right here is rain.

You may have remembered a couple of days ago we got some new silicone to put on our roof because our campervan roof has been leaking, which is very problematic at this time of year when it seems to be raining an awful lot. Guess what I am doing today again? Repairing the campervan. We do find out later that actually it has worked very well so one more problem on the campervan that is sorted.

So this sort of tour is actually really cool to get some more hidden places taking this really cool forest drive to which Sarni tells us more about which is apparently this forest has regrown over the span of a hundred years which is amazing considering how dense this forest was and how many different species there were. From the time we’ve been picked up, which was bright and sunny, to the time we arrived to the rainforest, which was about 20 minutes away from there, the sky became dark like super dark.

As soon as we open the van door, we start to hear thunder rumbling through the surrounding hills. The first two seconds of the walk goes good then all of a sudden – oh my God – the Heavens open and it feels like someone’s pouring a bucket of water over our heads it is that heavy but luckily Sarni has packed a few umbrellas. She obviously has a lot of local knowledge about the area, which you don’t appreciate really if you just go and visit these places by yourself. Sarni shows us a few things on the way, the kauri tree and we can’t even lift our umbrella up to see the extent of high this thing grows. The kauri can reach to about 30m until they have their first branches, that’s how tall they get. And they can reach up to about twice as high after that. How was your tour? Amazing, I’ve never seen rain before, so… New Zealand is four seasons in one day and it’s not a joke.

This is our fifth year running Coromandel Adventures. We’ve only cancelled this tour twice in five years and only three times has anyone got wet, but you guys have got the record.

And Sarni’s like: “Yeah, you know what, I can tell you the rest of this kauri story back at a cafe back in Coromandel town over a hot chocolate and it will be much more pleasant because we’ll be much more warmer.”

I love when things go wrong,. That’s what creates memory when things are a little bit crazy or just didn’t happen as planned. That’s the fun part of travelling.”

We just finished a really really really really wet hike and that got us completely soaked. Laura put the hairdryer, which is now all melted, inside the hiking shoe making my sole go from that to this. Can you spot the difference?

Long story short, I burnt Robin’s shoes. I was a bit of an idiot.