Day 3: Cape Reinga Tour

Before I start with a description of our adventures for the day 3, I need to step back a bit to talk about the elusive Kiwi bird.  This wonderful nation of people that are hosting us during this trip have rallied themselves behind a little brown bird, the size a chicken that burrows under the ground for 23 hours of the day and only comes out at dusk for an hour.  Talk about supporting the underdog of the wild kingdom!  So when being told about these little creatures, Robin (from the yacht) said you can hear them "screaming" when they come out at night.  Seriously, "screaming?"  So later that day, we were sitting on the patio with Gary and Paula and there is this annoying squeaky sound, like plastic scraping on plastic ... a squeaky wheel kind of sound.  And then Paula announces that the Kiwis must be out.  Wow.  Now I can see why the sound was described as "screaming."  What I find most entertaining is that we are staying in a protected kiwi area and no one here has ever seen one!  Brian has concluded that the kiwi must be a close relative of the American snipe.  I agree.

So on to Cape Reinga ... Cape Reinga is the further most northern point in New Zealand.  We were booked on a 12 hour motor coach tour to get to that point and back.  When we showed up at the bus and the driver asked us if we were with the backpacker group of the older group.  We didn't know, but we were sure we wanted to be on the backpacker bus.  Nope.  After careful checking, we found ourselves spending the day on the geriatric tour.  Granted, all our bus mates were quite pleasant and up for adventure, but when we looked across the way at the bus with bikini clad coeds, I knew where Brian's heart was.  (Mine, of course, is home with Dave.  I'm looking forward to him bringing it back to me on Monday.)

So, after spending an hour picking up all our bus mates, we headed north on a narrow two lane road at breathtaking speeds.  Needless to say, our driver knew the roads well.  As we drove along, he felt obligated to tell us the story of his life, some of it interesting, some not.  I was quite thankful to have my headphones with me at times.  He also serenaded us several times with traditional Maori songs.  The guy actually has a great voice, so that was pretty cool.

On our way to Cape Reinga, we stopped at this super cool forest where they had these HUGE trees.  They looked like the baby brother to our redwoods. 


We moved on from the forest area, further north, stopping for lunch and souvenirs.  The closer we got to Cape Reinga, the more sparse our surroundings and the landscape took on a more desert quality.  Cape Reinga has a light house that we could walk to and see out to the ocean.  This is the point where the Tasman sea to the west and the Pacific ocean to the east collide.  This was a pretty cool sight, seeing the waves crash against each other in the middle of the ocean.  You could also see a colour differentiation between the two oceans.

Following Cape Reinga, we headed south down 90 Mile Beach (which isn't 90 miles, BTW).  The first thing we got to do was go sand boarding down these HUGE (bigger than the trees) sand dunes.  When we first stopped, I was kind of concerned that the geriatric tour bus wouldn't be stopping, however our little group of grandparents were more than up for the challenge.  Yipee for them!  We get to play!!! 

So the hike up these sand dunes was excruciating.  Our calves were on fire and I can say my heart was POUNDING!!!  In fact, I was very worried that our trip may be side tracked by a heart attack from one of our trip mates.  Luckily, everyone on board had good, solid tickers still.  The ride down that hill was exhilarating and rather sandy too.  This one woman, totally wiped out face first.  Talk about covered in sand.  The best part about it was that she got right up, dusted herself off and was about to go back for more, but we had to go by that point.

On the last part of the trip, we headed down 90 Mile Beach.  There is no read on 90 Mile Beach.  You actually drive on the sand (think Daytona), but you can only access it at low tide.  While on that part of the trip, we saw wild horses trying to get away from us as fast as they could.  We also stopped for a short while to dig for clams  (which Brian and I had for dinner ... YUMMY!  Great job cooking Brian!)  And then we drove through the rain all the way home!  It was a great day and tomorrow we head south!