Easter Camping

Our initial plan for Easter was to gather a group of us from hostel and head out to Waiheke Island for camping but since we started plannin it a bit too late we had to make a plan B. At the end it was 10 of us - 8 Brits, German & me - and 2 cars heading somewhere north from Auckland. Idea was to drive about 2-3hrs and then find a camping area. By my suggestion we headed up north via State Highway 16, purely for the scenery. And like I knew, it didn't disappoint us. We stopped briefly at one lookout point and headed to Wellsford for lunch and to get some drinks for the weekend. And, we forget to get any food..

Next destination was to head towards Mangawhai, north-east from Wellsford. We couldn't find any spot for camping in there so we went to information point to get some suggestions. From there we were instructed to head a bit back and then towards coast to a place called Te Arai. We found a spot for our tents and bunch of us headed back to town to get some food and rest of us, me included, started to pitch up all the tents. We pitched 5 tents and one base was put on as a tarp to give us a wee shelter from rain.

The plan for the night was fairly clear.. Boose, bbq and lots of fun. At some point of the night bunch of us ended up sittin and havin fun in a teepee that was erected at the camping site. It was a bit absurd feeling sitting in there while two fellas were playin guitars, another one playin didgeridoo and few others banging indian drums. Plus, one of our fellas was banging old oil drum.. All in all, it was a great night, what a fun camping in a group can be.

On the next afternoon we headed to close-by beach, Te Arai Point, just to relax for awhile before headin back to Auckland. On our way back we stopped for brief lunch in a small town which name I never got. Few more hours of drivin and we were back in Auckland, more or less shattered from the weekend. But everyone was so relaxed for having escaped the city, even for one night.