Bay of Islands and Northland

So I'm a bit behind here, as I'm off to another place. Will have to blog about Raglan next time I get a chance. For now, this is what I did for the last week...

As I alluded to – I didn’t fully enjoy the city. I think it’s mostly due to the task-oriented week I had while there. To give it its due, Auckland is clean, has lots of good restaurants – particularly Asian food (yum!), easy enough to get around (although I encountered a few very nice bus drivers, the majority of them were not helpful and not very pleasant), and easy to get out of – which I did. I visited Kiwi Mike’s parents on the north shore. Now that’s a beautiful part of the ‘city’.

When I left on the bus on Saturday afternoon to head up north I was relieved to leave the buzz of the city. If you’ve traveled enough you can relate to the fact you will never be able to know how beautiful a place is through pictures. To know it is to experience it. I remember when I went to the Greek Islands I really wished I could capture the beauty for those back home – you just cannot capture the blueness of the water in the Aegean Sea. It’s not possible. There are many amazing places to see out there and unless you are there, you cannot fully appreciate it. It’s too bad we can’t upload our experience from our brain/our mind’s eye so others can really know it the way we did. The only thing I can really apologize for are the photos taken through the bus windows at high speeds. For the rest of the photos – you’ll have to make due with what I’ve tried to capture. Believe me – it’s more beautiful here than you can see from them. I took way too many trying to capture the one shot I believe you are all waiting for: rolling green hills and sheep! J Haha!! No, I’m not joking – I took many pasture shots trying to capture the sheep for you. I was delighted when I saw my first hill of sheep. They love being on top of the hills. But I digress as usual. You want to know about Northland I’m sure.

Northland – the northernmost area of NZ. The climate here is sub-tropical. The mornings and evenings (at this time of the year anyway) are quite cool. The afternoons are nice and warm – low twenties Celsius. I took the InterCity Bus from downtown Auckland (least expensive transportation mode in the country and quite reliable with very nice drivers) to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Of note: across the bay from Paihia is a small town called Russell (which is accessible by ferry only) – it was the first national capital of the country. I stayed in Paihia at a little backpackers (that’s what they call hostels here) called The Mousetrap. It was a nice little spot on a long road that is filled with backpackers’ accommodations. I could see the bay from the veranda of the place and it was a 500 m walk to the beach. I was lucky enough to get upgraded to a twin share room instead of a dorm and my roommate was a young girl from York, England who was there scuba diving. She is on extended vacation down here and to Oz before returning home to look for work now that she’s done school. I spent three nights there and from there I took a one-day tour of the far north. This was a 12-hour, 500 km tour.

They picked a few of us up at our backpackers, along with other people from a few more stops around 7 AM (ugh – I know) and off we went. We first stopped very briefly at the Waipoua Kauri Forest. Since the trip was a bit rushed, I really did not learn anything about this forest, unfortunately. But I did appreciate the fern that grows here in NZ, which I learned is the symbol for the airline here. I took a cool photo of it, as I found it quite neat. Off we went to Ninety Mile Beach on the Aupori Peninsula. Ninety Mile Beach is actually 64 miles long, and it is officially designated as a highway, as I was told it was used as such in the past. At any rate, tour buses mostly drive up this beach, as it is dangerous to do so on your own. You can only drive the beach during low tide, and many a car that has attempted the drive has gotten stuck when the tide has come in on them. There are cars buried in the sand there. No company will insure you if you choose to drive it yourself. The bus we were on was a specially designed bus that was built on a truck engine, so the engine is in the front in order to be able to drive in such conditions. It was a rocky and fast drive for those 500 km. We had to leave the beach at the earlier exit point, as the tide was coming in and we would not make it to the exit 20 minutes up at Te Paki Stream (where apparently the driver has to negotiate 3 km of quicksand – this is where most cars have gotten stuck). An hour’s drive from the beach had us at these huge naturally shifting dunes where we went sand-boarding. Oh yes – down giant sand dunes, head first on a boogie board. It was unnerving at first laying on the board at the top of the dune but once I got going down, and my stomach came back down to its rightful place, it was super fun!! After this we headed off to another small volcanic sand beach where we ate lunch. After lunch we headed up to the northernmost point of NZ – Cape Reinga. This is a sacred place for the Maori people – it is where the spirits of the dead depart – leap off into the ocean. If you’ve checked out the photos you’ve also seen the lighthouse at Cape Reinga and the note that I made about the meeting of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea at this point. By the way, I put my feet in both: Tasman Sea at Ninety Mile Beach, and Pacific Ocean at the small beach at our lunch stop. The sea was warmer – as expected. We stopped in a little fishing village, called Mangonui, on the way back for fish and chips (yum!) and got back into Paihia at 6:30 PM. OK. So it was 11.5 hours, not 12. Close enough. I was exhausted.

I’m back in the city again now to take care of a few more arrangements and then I’m off again for some more touring of the north island. I am itching to get settled, so I hope to do that sooner rather than later. One particular NZ treat that I’ve found: RJ’s natural licorice. I’ve bought it more than once now. Yes, they have both vegemite and marmite here – I have tried neither.