This was one of the longest legs of our journey around the North Island, at about 280km. I saw a couple new and somewhat interesting things on this leg.

Coming as I do from New Jersey, where deer are considered wildlife, and in Mercer County, a nuisance, I did not expect to see deer being raised like cattle. It turns out however, that venison, or cervena as it's called there, has quite a market, is served on quite a few menus right next to the lamb and beef.

Also on this leg, We passed though a fairly large region used for harvesting timber. At first I was a bit shocked. Large areas of the landscape looked as if an atomic weapon had gone off in the middle of it. Baren doesn't even cover it. However as we traveled a little further I realized they weren't being as reckless as I first though. We began to pass areas that were obviously planted, and replanted. We later learned that they in fact cut and replant on aproximately a 25 year cycle, making the best use out of the limited space they have.

Click on the thumbnails to see the full picture
A deer farm	Replanted forest	Fall shows it's colors