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Friday, October 4, 2013

The north island of New Zealand has an area called the twin coasts. It is a narrow strip where both coasts, the Tasman and the Pacific, are a short distance from each other. We drive south from Cape Reinga and see between the green hills one of the giant sand dunes that rises on the Tasman Sea coast. That is where we are headed next.

Clouds come and go but the sun shines mostly and brings out the deep greens of the pastured hills, the sandy brown of the dunes and beaches and the brilliant blue of the sky. Before long, we find the turn off for the Giant Te Paki Sand Dunes. It's a gravel road that suddenly brings us to a stop in front of a giant pile of sand. The dunes can reach a height of 6000 feet and are a popular spot for sand surfers. Yes, you heard me right. People rent surf board type sleds and slide down the dunes. Of course first you have to climb up.

Bob and I pass on the $15 NZ/person fee for a board rental. There is no way we are climbing up there as we crane our necks to watch some of the younger and braver souls make their way to the top. No one is surfing though which is disappointing. We had hoped to watch a bit of someone else's fun.

While we watch people on the dunes, several tour buses arrive and pass our vantage point to go around the end of one of the dunes and enter the 90 Mile Beach stretch that allows them to drive on the sand. There's a small stream that they need to ford before hitting the beach. We are glad that we stopped earlier to see the beach. It would have been impossible to get to it from here without getting wet.

When we realize no one is going to surf, we return to our car and continue south while looking for a turn off to go and see the white sand beaches. The white sand is made of silicon and we've caught glimpses of the gleaming sands on our way to the Cape.

Before we can see the white sand, we find the general store that has Bonnie's Ice Cream inside. Bonnie was a favorite person in the area and was said to have the best ice cream around. Unfortunately she died a few months before our trip but others are carrying on the tradition. Bob orders vanilla with honey chunks in it and mine is boysenberry/vanilla. A nice afternoon treat.

A sign points to the east near a turnoff telling us it is for Ruwara Beach and we take the turn. It pays off as we find ourselves at the end of another gravel road but facing gleaming white sand dunes. We linger a bit and walk out near the water's edge. The tide is out and it's a long walk but as we turn to go back, we can see the length of beach as it stretches out in all its sparkling whiteness.

On our way back to Paihia we find a MacDonald's. Ah, a little bit of home away from home. And internet! We order filtered coffees and check our email before calling it a day and arriving in Paihia for dinner.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Our jet lag fairly overcome by a great night's rest, we strike out for our goal of visiting the northern most point of New Zealand. The point is known as Cape Reinga and there is a beautiful lighthouse there we plan to visit. The drive is just under three hours. Our host at Allegra House has given us a few hints of what to see that we hadn't already planned including a stop at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom to pick up our sandwiches for lunch.



The Ancient Kauri Kingdom is hard to miss. It's a huge building that houses a workshop and gallery featuring all sorts of things made from ancient Kauri wood. The wood was excavated from swamps on the North Island and is carbon dated to 45,000 years. It is the oldest workable wood in the world. Living kauri trees are among the oldest and largest trees in the world and are protected. The only wood that can be worked is the old trees that have been dug up from the swamps. Once finished, the wood has a beautiful grain and sheen.

We admire the works in the gallery and peek in at the workshop before going to the café to see if there are any sandwiches to be had. If we don't get something here, we're not sure we'll find lunch any where else. An egg salad sandwich appeals and so does a bottle of ginger beer that tastes a bit like ginger ale but with a much stronger ginger taste.

Brita, our host at Allegra, has told us to take a side road for a detour that will give us opportunity to see 90 Mile Beach. This beach is a bit like Daytona where cars can drive out onto it because the sand is so solidly packed. Even tour buses drive the beach! It can be dangerous though if you don't know what you are doing and it is tide dependent so if you aren't paying attention, you could be floating away into the Tasman Sea before you get to the next exit. The origin of the name is unknown since the beach is actually only 55 miles long and of course everything else is counted in kilometers.

We park just at the end of the entrance to the beach where the tracks of others can be seen heading north in the sand. It's as far as we dare go with our rental car. Bob takes off his shoes and walks out onto the beach and out to the water. He taunts me to follow but with a whole day ahead of us, I'm not keen on having sandy feet.

Back on the highway (a two lane twisting and turning road) we encounter lots of logging trucks. There are numerous forests in the area and logging is quite an export business. Lots of fields are filled with cattle and some sheep. We've been told that there are more sheep farms on the Southern Island.

Before long, we arrive at the car park for the Cape Reinga Lighthouse. The lighthouse sits out on a point and is reached by way of a very nice paved walkway that winds down to the water. Down is the operable word here and as I enjoy the sunny walk down my thoughts turn to what the walk will be like coming back up.

The landscape is green with sandy beach meeting blue, very blue water. Along the way are lots of signs giving information about old Maori legends. One sign points out a tree growing precariously out of a rock cliff below. The sign says it is an ancient tree that is known as a kahika, "It survives, as pohutukawa trees often do, in what seems impossible conditions--even a rock face lashed by salt winds."

The lighthouse is bigger than it appears from the top of the hill. It has set here since 1941 and is the first light that sailors see when arriving from the Tasman Sea and the North Pacific. It was automated in 1987 and is monitored from Wellington. The original light was replace with a 50 watt tungsten halogen bulb that is powered by a battery charged by solar panels.

Trekking back up to the top of the hill and the car park, I am winded but satisfied to have made it standing. Shortly after pulling out of the car park, we turn off for Tapotupotu Bay. A small campground lies at the end of a long gravel road which winds its way down with hairpin turns. There's a very nice beach and several picnic tables where we find a nice spot to enjoy our sandwich and chips and ginger beer. This is what we enjoy so much about traveling on our own. No tour buses. No crowded bus stops for lunch. Just a handful of others who have escaped the mainstream and are enjoying a wonderful afternoon in a spot too pretty for words.

Time comes to navigate our way back to the paved roadway and begin our trip back south. But there are yet some spectacular sights to see along the way.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

After saying goodbye to our friends near Auckland, we set the Garmon for Paihia where we are to stay for three nights. Paihia is on the North Island of New Zealand and near the Bay of Islands. We travel north on Highway 1 marveling at how many shades of green there are in the landscape. The several days of rain before our arrival coupled with the sunny day are bringing out the best that the New Zealand spring has to offer.

We stop for coffee in the hopes that it will help keep us awake. Around lunch time, we make a little side trip to what is marked on the map as a beach town thinking that we will find a restaurant or café. The one we find doesn't have anything that appeals to us so we check out the little convenient store just down the road. It has the bottled water we need but no sandwiches. We retreat to the car and find our way back to the main highway while I fish in our backpacks for the two peanut candy bars I stowed away for a snack. They turn out to be our lunch.

It takes us a little over three hours to drive from the Auckland area to Paihia due in part to lots of construction on the roads. Just like back home what we call "orange barrel season" but they use orange cones instead. The road isn't wide enough for barrels.

In Paihia, we wind our way up the hillside to Allegra House, our B&B for three nights. We are greeted by Heinz our host who tsk tsks our choice to drive all the way on the same day we have arrived in New Zealand. He is quick to plug in the water heating pot for tea and present us with some wonderful cookies. He gives us the rundown of the room, the services, and of course where breakfast will be served in the morning.

I only half hear what Heinz tells Bob because I am standing in front of the sliding glass doors that lead out to our balcony space drinking in the spectacular view. We face the town of Russell on the peninsula across from us and off in another direction, we can see several small islands. This is the Bay of Islands. On a cruise to NZ and Australia a few years back, we stopped here, anchored, and took tenders to one of the islands. We learned that it is a big-game fishing area made popular by the writer, Zane Grey, when he wrote of it back in the 1930s.

Keeping true to his philosophy of staying awake as long as possible to adjust to the time change and jet lag, Bob has planned that we will go look at Haruru falls just a few kilometers away from where we are. I wistfully look at the soft pillows and inviting comforter on the bed and sigh.

We find the falls without a problem (love that Garmon) and take the requisite pictures. We try to find a meeting house where a treaty was signed but can't seem to locate it. So, okay, the Garmon isn't perfect but then we are tired and maybe not functioning as well as the Garmon either.

At a nice sized grocery store we find an inexpensive insulated bag, some bottled water, apples, and chips but no sandwiches. We plan to pick up some the next day perhaps at a bakery before we set off on our trip to the northern most point of New Zealand.

Thanks to Tripadvisor we find a restaurant that is recommended. It's a little rough around the edges almost qualifying as a hole-in-the-wall place but the menu looks good. I am surprised and pleased with an excellent meal of chicken, pork, rice, and salad.

It is still early when we return to our BB but I slip into bed to warm up. It has cooled down quite a bit since the sun set and I am chilled as well as dead tired. A few pages into the novel I'm reading and I can't keep from nodding off. I give up and turn off my reading light. As soon as I close my eyes, I'm out, a prayer lingering on my lips that we will sleep through the night and wake refreshed for our first real day of experiencing New Zealand.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

After passing the beagle sniff test at the airport (thankfully vitamins, blood pressure meds, and Lipitor are not on her list of illegals), we grab our ride to the Apex car rental place. It is about 6 a.m. Auckland time. I can’t do the math to figure out what time it is at home but I know that somewhere over the Pacific, we lost October 2 in the blink of an eye or rather, in my case, a jerking nod of the head that woke me again.

They tell us we are fortunate to have arrived when the rain has finally ended. There were three or four days of it but now the sun is warm on our faces as we sit outside on their patio enjoying the view, great coffee and muffins and conversation. We feel ourselves begin to relax a bit too much and finally excuse ourselves so that we can get back on the road. We have miles to go. . .make that kilometers to go before we sleep.

This may be confusing to some of my readers who know that we left on October 1 for New Zealand and here it is October 9 and this is my first post. Before each trip we take, I always write a few posts ahead and schedule them (thanks to Blogger) to appear on my blog during the first few days of our journey. For one thing, we usually lose a day with travel and then we can't always be sure of internet connections. And this time we have the added delight of also losing a day by crossing the International Date Line. We left Cleveland on the afternoon of the 1st and arrived in Auckland the morning of the 3rd. If you think you're confused. . .

But here we are in Auckland and even though it is the 9th, we'll act like it's the 3rd (here in NZ) and I'll start posting as if the journey were just beginning. Which it is because you see I'm actually writing this as I begin our trip but it won't post until the 9th thanks to the scheduler on Blogger. Still confused? Okay, let's change the subject.

We flew United to San Francisco and then boarded an Air New Zealand for Auckland. When I discovered what airline we were flying, I remembered an old post I did about "the airline with nothing to hide." I checked. Yup, it was Air New Zealand. I won't make you click on a link. Below is the safety video from a few years ago. And yes, the clothing is all body paint. And you thought the Aussies were edgy.



Actually, ANZ has changed its safety film and now features one with Bear Gryllis who is a survivalist on a reality show. Its every bit as good as the other one. When I searched for it, I found that ANZ changes their safety film quite often. There are quite a few to look at if you're interested. Just go to YouTube and search for Air New Zealand safety video.



Auckland to Paihia now that we've landed--safely without having to use any survival techniques other than those needed to get through immigration and customs. A word to the wise: be sure you don't carry any fresh food into the country even if it's packaged. Those little dogs sniff out more than illegal drugs.