Cape Reinga, Sand Boarding

The next day we drove the Northest of the North – Cape Reinga. This is where the Tasman Tea collides with the Pacific Ocean. There is a lighthouse here, and according to Maori legend, this is where the soul departs after death towards heaven (I believe heaven was actually called “Hawaii,” or something similar). We hiked out to the lighthouse to take photos. There is also a famous, old Pohutukawa tree that grows straight out the side of a rocky edifice. If we haven’t told you yet, Pohutukawas are called “New Zealand’s Christmas tree” because they have bright red blossoms and bloom around Christmas every year. We heard about the tree about 95 times when we first got here, and it sort of became a joke, but they are gorgeous. They are also used in a lot of NZ art and tourism guides.

It was pretty incredible to see the two bodies of water colliding – you could actually see it, and the landscape was just lovely.

Here we are looking from the cape on to Te Werahi Beach and Cape Maria van Diemen


Here is Marian impersonating the meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean


Looking out at the cape lighthouse


Here is a lighthouse with Lighthouse


Here is the Pohutukawa tree at the end of the cape.


After spending some time at the Cape we drove back down, and dawned our bathing suits for a little sand boarding on the dunes. Marian was very excited for this, and John was too, but not as much because he does not like getting sand on his body. Marian smartly put on her super SPF shirt her mom had given her to try and keep some sand off. Riding the dunes was one of Marian’s favorite things she did while she was here – and she only crashed once! John did a really great job, but ended up dragging his feet a little too hard and got a little sand burn.

Here is a sequence of Marian coming down the sand hill...she is the moving white dot:




Here is John;


We then drove South, stopping off at Rawawa Beach. John used the opportunity to devoid himself of the evil sand and jumped in the Pacific! Marian was way too cold to do that and stayed nice and sandy. After this, we traveled over to 90 Mile beach. Its actually only about 67 kilometres, but the point is that it is a long sandy beachy area…with evidently a lot of dead sea creatures! Look at what we found!





And just a nice picture of the beach:


After our stroll along 90 mile beach, we decided we wanted to stay the night at Tauranga Bay. Along the way we stopped off and enjoyed the view of the Doubless Bay



Although it was dark by the time we reached the campsite, we could tell it was right on the water by the sound of the waves, and we arrived under a beautiful clear canopy of stars. We were happy to have a clear night! John was frustrated because the showers were token operated…but the office was closed and we couldn’t buy any. We did our best to shower in the bathroom sink until the lights went out. Since the temperature had dropped significantly at this time of the year at night, we hurried to cook dinner, set up camp and get to sleep in our warm sleeping bags.

Kauri Forests to Pukenui

The following day we woke up and played on the flying fox (flying fox being kiwi for zip line) at the Holiday park. New Zealand kids get to play on much cooler toys.





When our fun was over we headed into the Kauri forest. Kauri are these old as sin (literally about as old as when Jesus was around) trees, that were heavily logged when Europeans got here with their greedy little hands. They hold spiritual significance in Maori culture, and this forest had the giants of the giants. In the pics below you will see the four sisters, the second largest and oldest Kauri tree Te Matua Ngahere, the seventh largest Kauri, Yakas, and finally the tallest Kauri Tane Mahuta. Its pretty unbelievable to imagine these trees kickin it back in the BC, and still here today!

Here are the 4 Sisters:


Here we are with Te Matua Ngahere:


Here we are with the Yakas:


Here is John's favorite picture of the Yakas:


Here we are with Tane Mahuta in the far background:


We continued heading up north Waiotemarama Bush walk. The book described this as a good walk with picturesque waterfalls. Since it was late in the day we knew we couldn't do the entire walk but would be able to see Waiotemarama Falls (the picture below):




After a long day of foresting, we drove even more North to stay in Pukenui. Along the way the prettiest sight was Hokianga Harbor. So we took a quick picture on the drive:

Uretiti to the Kauri Forests

We were quite happy to wake up to Uretiti Beach in the back of our car, with the sun shining, and a stunning beach to take a gander at.





We continued Northward to Whangarei, the major metropolis of Northland (population: 25,000). It was useful to stop there and get groceries and stop at the local I site to make sure we knew weather forecasts and book a place to stay that evening (evidently, John did not find sleeping in the vehicle to be greatly comfortable.)

The night before at the flatwarming, a friend had mentioned that we should most definitely stop at the Kai Iwi Lakes. These are a lesser known gem, we were soon to discover. John and I stopped there to no drive for a while, relax in the sun, swim in the water and read books. Like most things in New Zealand, we were stunned by just how serene and beautiful the lakes were.

Here is Marian making her lunch:




Can you see us in the water?...


Here is the 2nd Kai Iwi lake:


And here we are at the last lake:


We continued westward towards the Kauri Forest, and arrived at our campsite with just enough time to make ourselves dinner before we ventured on a group night tour of the forest to hopefully spot some nocturnal creatures native to New Zealand. This may sound a bit strange, but actually, New Zealand has a lot of famous nightly critters, the most infamous being the nearly nationally symbolic Kiwi. Have we talked about Kiwis? I’m sure you want to know all about them. So here we go.

Back in the day, New Zealand was covered in birds. And big birds. One of them was the Moa, a bird that was even larger than an ostrich. Well, the Maoris arrived and ate them all a long time ago. But the kiwi is a distant relative of the Moa (or in the same bloodline, whatever, we will have to consult a zoologist or something), and is a furry little, non flying, long beaked, curious and defenseless creature that was able to survive very well in New Zealand up until the possum was introduced from Australia. John finds the kiwi altogether hilarious because of its unique defenselessness. It doesn’t have any wings, cannot fly, cannot protect itself until it gains a certain amount of weight, they are curious and walk TOWARDS sounds as opposed to exercising caution, and they produce a unique smell, which attracts dogs. All of these factors add up to making this bird a very hard one to keep around. So now there are a great number of kiwi protection projects all around the country, and this particular forest has been greatly successful at protecting the little bird.

Marian finds the kiwi to be quite cute, and simply because it is such a difficult creature to come across (nocturnal, not a lot of them) and because it is quite honestly one of the main symbols of New Zealand, you naturally grow this strange urge to want to see one in the wild – VERY BADLY! So we found out from the lady that ran the campground that we had about a 50% chance of seeing one in the wild on this particular tour. And we DID! Well, its little rump anyways. So, although it wasn’t the greatest view, we were quite pleased that we found one in the wild. We also found a fat little eel, (hmmm wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that our guide feeds it?), several large Kauri trees, glow worms, and a possum. And a Weta! These are called the “demon grasshoppers” of NZ…see if you can tell why in the pics.

Here is the Eel:


Here is the Kiwi...kind of...it was tough to take the pictures with the guide shifting the light all of the time...


Here are some out of focus Wetas:


And finally, we saw a little possum running around in the trees:


Marian was glad that the grasshoppers did not jump on her.

Northland Ho!

As is customary on days off, we got a late start to the day, and headed up to Northland at around 2 or 3. It was a long drive. If you can’t tell from the name – Northland is the Northern part of the North Island (not to be confused with Southland, the South part of the South Island), and we had a long way to go. We made a few stops along the way, but mostly just went straight up, but by the time we got up there (around 1 AM) realized with great surprise that we had not booked a place to stay and the campground gate closed at 9 PM (even though the DOC pamphlet did not mention a gate). We made it to the outside of a campground and made use of the Suburu’s roomy trunk, and slept in the car for the second time.

Along the way Marian caught a nice sunset in Taupo

Warming up the flat, working for free

You see, some people in this world deserve a break, and my boss John at the cafe is definitely one of those people. He opened the café a little less than a year ago, and works 12 hours a day if not more, everyday. He is often inclined to give people free coffees and attempts to treat every patron with respect and dignity – even if they are bums on the street. Also, he has given Marian a pretty sweet gig because she is allowed to work when she would like M-F for 4 hours/day (unless business is particularly slow). This has helped greatly with allowing us to plan trips and to help pay bills and for fun stuff. So as a thank you John and Marian volunteered to work for John for a full day at no cost to him so he could have a full day off and sleep in for the first time in months. We completed this offer on a Thursday before we left for Northland so John would get a nice day off before Marian was away for a week. Sorry, it does get a bit confusing with the two Johns.

That Saturday, we had a flat warming party with our flatmates and mostly their friends. Although, we were able to drag a few friends of our own as well. The theme of the party was “the Olympics,” so you will see that Marian dressed as a sunburned mountain sporting person of some sort. Mom’s old ski coat worked as a great asset. John chose to go with the “too cool for the Olympics” (although he did say his theme was "Olympic Spectator" without any the athletes would not make any money) until it got cold, at which point, he put on a Nike running shirt and was subsequently teased for finally deciding to join in. Nevertheless, it was a successful flatwarming party, with the party making its way downtown later that evening. However, the only flatmate that actually made it downtown was Matt, the rest of us decided that the party at the house was enough fun for us. John and Marian were particularly happy because the next day they were leaving for a Northland adventure!

Here is Marian with Matt's friend the wrestler and our friends Angie and Dave (who were unaware of the theme party)


The hair seen in this picture is our flatmate Phillipa rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody


Here is Marian with another skier and our flatmate Claire who has her hands up with the boxing gloves.

Easter Away From Home and Red Rocks

The following day our friend Magnus, who we met through Justus, invited us to his place to celebrate a little Easter BBQ. It was slightly cold and rainy that day, putting a damper on the BBQ, but we were still able to enjoy good food and friends. After the BBQ, we headed back to the flat where Marian made some of her favorite deviled eggs to celebrate Christs’ resurrection. I know Jesus would love him some deviled eggs. Oh yes, and we attended church that morning as well, of course. The ceremony was pretty hilarious with the local priest using a children’s story as the focus of his homily.

On Easter Monday (an official holiday here), we went out to a hike just outside of town called, “Red Rocks.” The views were pretty spectacular, and the hike was a good exercise. You could actually see the South Island, we were blessed with good weather again. Some more pics for you:



Here is Marian by the 'Red Rocks':

Adventures with Elves

We finally made it out to Kaitoke Regional Park again, (i.e. Rivendell), to see where the elves used to be. If you are not familiar with Rivendell, it is the location where the elves are located in Lord of the Rings. While it was a beautiful day, and the park was stunning, there was zero left in the way of sets from the actual film. We made up where things might have been filmed, with the help of a few signs. Here are some pics:







After seeing the film sights we went on a short walk around the park. There was a fun swinging bridge and we some cool trees.