Look it up on a map people! Definitely one of the coolest places we have seen on this earth so far...
So, eventually we made our way to the far north and based ourselves in a small town called Ahipara, at its southern end. We sprung for a room with a view, of course, Mom's here! The next day we hired a tour guide and made the trek up to the very very top of New Zealand. Linda and Tawnya were treated to a personal tour of the north and chatted the whole way with our guide Sarah. As we made our way to the end of the earth (or so it felt), our lil' Jode napped in the back as the road was extremely curvy and hilly (but managed to avoid getting sick). All of this was in order to pay a visit to the enigmatic Cape Reinga. According to Maori legend, this is where their ancenstor's souls depart into the next life (basically).
All they have to do is drive for 2 hours into very unforgiving countryside with no facilities, shops, or people; climb all the way to the top of the point, only to climb down the steep cliff side while battling hurricane-like wind; then into (or over) the the terrifying crashing surf where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman sea (you can literally see them colliding together); and then up another jagged rock cliff onto a Pohutukawa tree, where they have to make their way down the tree to its roots where they are said to enter the Underworld and then be taken back to their homeland. Wow, these people are tough, and whatta way to go. And yes that was all one sentence. Seriously though, a truely magical place that really feels like the end of the earth and everything else mortal. Very intimidating and intriguingly beautiful at the same time. If it didn't feel like all the wind on the entire earth originated from this very point, we coulda stayed there and pondered our own afterlives for much longer.
After Cape Reinga, we had lunch on another gorgeous beach in a pretty bay which included some kind of pumpkin/kumara (sweet potato) soup. Sarah then drove her 4x4 SUV through the Quicksand River (really! no stopping allowed) to the massive sand dunes to try some sand tobagganing. The 3 of us (meaning Tawn, Jode and Sarah) left Mom K to cover picture duty as we headed up the dune, and eventually down. Pretty cool thing to do, but probably much more fun without the hurricane winds which were no doubt sent down from Cape Reinga (see above). So, it was much more of a feat to actually make it up to the top of the dunes. Going down was the easy part, and seemed far less crazy than going up. We will never be able to describe the amount of sand in our mouths and places sand should not be. Never mind the numb and shaky feeling in our legs as we realized that the "feeling the burn" on the climb up is in fact not a good thing. Seriously, painful, AND, not to mention the sand whipping our faces and exfoliating our eyeballs as we tried not to notice how out of shape we actually are. Funny enough, we are not sore, and have no regrets.
More to come with tales and pics of our drive down the beach highway, 90 Mile Beach. Best Day Ever!!!
Out of the dunes and on the beach, which is never ending...
Fresh wild horse tracks on the beach, we followed them and found them up in the hills
Cruising down the beach highway, searching for wild horses and whatever would come our way!! We would drive forever and not see anything but sand and wild surf, and then out of nowwhere, there'd be something going on...
These guys collect the seaweed only a few days a year when they contain the spawn of mussels and then sell them to farms to grow them, apparently a million dollar business and really hard work. These guys were the pros, some others just had a shovel and a wheelbarrow like cart.
A blokart and one of two stringrays which get caught on the fisherman's kite lines and more horse tracks
View from the truck and then the best part...our 3 Kiwi fisherman who actually gave us a freshly caught snapper. We rinsed it off in the surf and they filleted it right then and there, amazing! We had so much fun playing with all the catch (including a wee hammerhead shark!) and they were so classically New Zealand. Such nice old guys, for sure the highlight of the day, and then we got to eat snapper for supper, that was barely dead an hour.
