Long beaches and Cape Reinga

I got up before 6 this morning, because we had booked a bus tour to Cape Reinga. The bus was supposed to pick us up at 7:10.

Along with many other tourists from the hostels down the street, we lined up at the street at 7 to wait for the bus.
In the end, a total of four busses showed up. We found "our" bus and were on our way to a Kauri forest.

The Waipoua Kauri forest was very impressive. The leaves were still wet (it's a rain forest, after all) and the bounty of different green colors looked beautiful.

We continued our drive up North and stopped in Awanui for coffee. We also got some sandwiches (for lunch later on).

From Awanui, we drove up to the "Ninety Mile Beach."
In reality, the beach is only 64 miles long (some sources say 55 miles, I guess it depends where you start measuring). As the story goes, the settlers back in the 1800s thought their cattle caravans and horses could cover 30 miles a day. They needed three days to walk down the beach, so someone came up with the estimate that the beach was 90 miles long.
According to our guide, the name was never changed to "Sixty-four Mile Beach" because Australia apparently has an "Eighty Mile Beach" (which in reality is only 72 miles long - but that's still longer than 64 miles...). No Kiwi would ever admit defeat to the Australians... *lol*

The "Ninety Mile Beach," by the way, is registered as an official street. The speed limit is 100 kmh (about 65 mph). Driving along it is pretty safe, as long as you stay out of the water (driving through the water with passengers is actually illegal, as our guide explained) and be careful about dry quicksand (we did see the remains of car that got stuck in the sand last easter... the driver could rescue himself but the vehicle is still stuck in the sand, barely visible by now).

Next up, we stopped at a cliff jutting out into the sea. Half of the cliff is sacred Maori ground (tourists aren't allowed there) but we climbed up on the other side and got to watch the raging sea (it was really windy out there!)

A herd of wild horses lives in the sand dunes and surrounding forest. Sometimes, they apparently come out of hiding, but we couldn't find them. There were strong winds going, so I assume they stayed sheltered in the forests.

We did take a drive through the sand dunes, and this is when we truly experienced the potential of our bus :)
Among the four busses this morning, our bus was the smallest. We were a group of only 18 people and our bus wasn't one of the conventional tourist busses - it was a converted military vehicle, all set with 4-wheel drive, a strong engine, and massive tires!

Cruising through the dunes, we stopped at a rather large one - perfect for sand boarding!
My friend and a group of about ten people took off their shoes and socks, and got ready to climb the dune with a boogey board. Once on top of the dune, any style of surfing down is acceptable :)
I didn't go (not really my cup of tea) but Camilla had a lot of fun, and I got to take the pictures to prove it ;)

After the sand boarding, we took off for Cape Reinga, the northern most point on the North Island, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea.

Today, an automated light house stands on the Cape. We went down to look at it (quickly, because the wind picked up again!) and enjoyed the great views.

According to Maori legends, the spirits of the dead people leave Aoteaora (Maori word for New Zealand) at Cape Reinga and travel on to the mythical country of Hawaiki. The spot on Cape Reinga where the souls leave the country is also sacred Maori ground. Tourists are not allowed, and our guide asked us to stay off the forbidden hill. Of course, at some point, someone was standing up there taking touristy pictures (he might have been from a different tour - there were quite a few tourists around).

We settled down in the bus to eat our lunch, when the weather turned stormy in seconds!
All of the sudden, rain storms were pounding the busses, coming in at horizontal angles, whipping around the cars.
The busses (still sandy from driving down the beach) got a good washing, and the spook was over in 20 to 30 minutes.

We turned around and drove back towards Paihia. On our way, we stopped at the "Kauri Kingdom," a cafe and store selling mostly wooden objects carved from ancient Kauri trees.
Nowadays, it is illegal to cut down Kauri trees. However, people found ancient Kauri trees preserved in swamps. Some of them are more than 45,000 years old! Today, people dig up the giant tree stumps and turn them into (expensive) furniture and household items.

We also stopped in Mangonui, a little town on the coast, for some Fish 'n Chips. Apparently, they have the best fish 'n chips in this area because the fish is so fresh (caught around three hours earlier).
I'm not a huge fish 'n chips fan, so I hoped for some other kind of fish, but they really didn't have anything else. The fish of the day was bluenose, and it really did taste deliciously fresh!

For dessert, we stopped at a farmer's fruit store. Stewie, the owner, gave us free samples of fresh organic fruit, like mandarins, oranges, and kiwi fruit.
I bought a small bag of golden kiwi fruit (four for a dollar). Sounds like a nice addition to breakfast tomorrow :)

We got back around 6pm after an eventful day. Now I'm a little tired ;)