Opononi Area and heading south

Once we got off the ferry, we headed back south towards Auckland for another visit with our friends, the Forbes, and then headed farther south to eventually catch the ferry (in Wellington) to the South Island.  These are some of the sights on our journey.

 This, unfortunately, isn't such a great photo.  I'll will try for another.  Not sure of the breed, but we've heard someone call these 'oreo cows'. At first, I thought he/she was hurt but the other black cows also had pink markings, so it must be some sort of branding.

 This is a puketo and is one of the birds we frequently see in NZ.  Still haven't seen a kiwi bird.  They are supposed to be nocturnal, so we may never see one as we're not on the road at night.

 NZ is very pastoral...lots of sheep and cows, pastures and rolling hills. Much of it has reminded us of the Devon-Cornwall area of England.

 One of the beautiful hibiscus they have here.  This one was more than a foot across (or for you metric people, more than 30 cm's)

 Fishing is a local pass-time here, whether on a lake, river, or in the surf.

 This is a Norfolk pine. We try to grow them in pots in our houses at home, but they are huge here and in Australia as well.

 Another lovely sunset.

We were driving through the countryside and saw fields and fields of carrots.  We'd never seen them grown in fields like that. Then we saw this huge one...apparently Chinese immigrants, to this area, discovered the soil was great for root veggies like carrots.