4th November
Awoken this morning by a fabulous sunrise across the ocean which we can see from our room, a perfect start to the day. Consequently we headed out early to Cape Reinga, the point where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet, breaking together in waves. The area is considered extremely sacred by the Maoris and at the tip of the cape is a spiritually significant 800-year old pohutukawa tree - souls of the departed are believed to slide down its roots on their way back to their spiritual homeland of Hawaiki. As a result you are not allowed to eat or drink on the site out of respect.
The road to get there is quite rough and unsealed in places, they are currently sealing the road starting from the cape and working back towards civilisation, but this isn’t due to be completed until about 2012, so it was a day of many bumpy, rough roads.
We wandered down to Cape Reinga Lighthouse which overlooks the point where the two oceans meet. We were lucky with the weather and were able to see right across to the Three Kings Islands and even the reflections of the clouds in the ocean, a perfect view.
We walked back up from the lighthouse a little way before taking a side path off along the cliffs towards Sandy Bay. You can actually walk down to it, but since this takes about 3 hours we just went along the cliffs a little way for another great view.
After Cape Reinga we drove out to Tapotupotu Bay, a quiet secluded bay where we had our picnic lunch, then headed further back down the cape to the giant sand dunes at Te Paki Recreation Reserve. These sand dunes were massive (and I hate sand - it gets everywhere!), but since we had borrowed a sledge from the hostel that morning, we felt duty bound to climb to the top of the nearest and largest sand dune in order to launch ourselves off it. Hard work wasn’t the word - 1 step forward and 2 back and by the time we reached the top our shoes were so full of sand they felt like large clowns feet on the end of your legs, and what were we rewarded with for this arduous climb? Sand, more sand, not an astounding view but sand! We could see the sea in the very distance, but I wasn’t going any further on sand. But still, we had the treat of whizzing down this beast of a dune on our wonderful sledge - well, whizzing isn’t quite the word, more a sedate glide.
And it was nothing to do with the wrong technique, we met two lads who also had a go with the same results - not the thrill seeking experience you hope for in New Zealand, but perhaps it’s better to start small and work our way up, after all Queenstown is still to come :).
On our way back to the hostel we called in at Spirits Bay, another deserted beach, this time with pink sand, a result of the masses of shells washed up on it.
By now the sun was high in the sky and it was very warm and concious of the fact that the sun is so fierce here we headed back to the hostel for a hot shower to rid us of all the sand, a quick tyre check for flats after all the rough roads and a meal.