The most northen tip of New Zealand: Cape Reinga

90 mile beach holiday park

Deb (our new wwoofing host) picked us up at the bus stop in Kaitaia.  She is the owner of the 90 Mile Beach  Holiday Park that was about a half hour from town.  She had a cute little dog with her, and she said they had 4 more at home.  A dog lover!  It must be a wwoofing match made in heaven.  After a bit of shopping we headed to the park and there we met Deb’s husband, daughter, Ema (their Au Pair) and Francine (a fellow wwoofer).  That night there was no work for us to do in the park so we were free to do our own thing.  So Ashlie and I headed out to walk the 90 mile beach.

It was stunning!  It also looked the same in every direction.  I walked for about 30 minutes north and nothing changed.  I made sure I kept an eye on the sand dunes on the way back to make sure I saw the sign for the parking lot.  Apparently there are only a few entrances to the beach.  We ended up being able to see the sunset.

In the morning, we didn’t have to clean any of the rooms until about ten so I went for another walk (2 hours all the same).  

 After a quick breakfast Deb got us cleaning windows and making beds.  It was easy work.  That night Deb and her husband made us a dinner of sausages and French fries.  Their daughter showed us some of the Maori staff dancing she had been learning after school.  She was really good and not shy at all.  I still get stage fright.  You got it lady, go with it!  

Cape Reinga

The whole reason we were up at 90 mile beach was to go to Cape Reinga, the most northern tip of New Zealand.  Deb was kind enough to let us take a day off cleaning and go.  The day trip started at 9:15AM.  We got picked up from the holiday park along with the two other girls.  The trip was only $50 each for Ashlie and me, and for the girls it was free!  The bus driver was a quirky kiwi who seemed more than pleased to show us around and tell a few jokes and stories in the process.  He started off by telling us about the ancient Kauri trees that are native to New Zealand. 

 

Skip the next three paragraphs if you are not all that interested in tree history.

Kauri trees are massive trees that are only native to the northern island of New Zealand.  These trees can grow to be five meters wide and thousands of years old.  When western settlers first came to New Zealand they saw how useful the kauri tree was for making masts for ships, tables, boat hauls and anything that generally needed to be strong, water resistant and straight.  The Kauri trees are valuable to ship builder because they are self pruning.  This means there are no knots in the  wood.  These trees grow for thousands of years and are very weather resistant.  So they started logging the kauri.  Also with the start of agriculture on the Northern Island they also started clearing the trees off the land and burning them.  This process destroyed almost all of the kauri.  After 80 years of neglect and gross over-logging the kauri tree became protected.  

Isn't this tree massive!

Now, in order to get this amazing wood you have to dig for it.  I know that seems weird, but hundreds of stumps and trees are buried in the sand dunes.   Before the sand dunes settled in the northern part of New Zealand there were heaps of marshes and wetlands.  When the land became too wet the mature kauri tree’s root systems would break and the trees would fall into the bog, be preserved for thousands of years.  Many Kiwis are sitting on buried treasure!  People will still pay very high prices for this wood.

Later, after many of the Kauri trees were gone settlers discovered a byproduct of the trees that could be as profitable as gold.  Gum!  Resin from the sunken Kauri trees floated on top of the many swamps and bogs in the North.  The Moari’s discovered this scum like substance and used it for waterproofing clothing, jewelry (out of fossilized pieces), chewing gum, fire starter and even tattoo ink.   
 

Gum before and after

 When the European came they realized the value of the gum for export.  They wanted to sell it varnish and chewing gum makers.  This started the Gum diggers.  Much like the gold rush, people moved from all over to make their fortune.  Lots of Europeans came and started digging.  The resin found in the North Island is no longer as valuable as it used to be.  Since the development of synthetic resins the demand is much lower and extraction is often much too expensive.  So you don’t need to rush out to New Zealand to make your fortune, sorry folks.


Our first stop was Huahora harbor.  This harbor used to be a European whaling spot.  It’s quite a protected, so people love to fish here and go boating because the water is so calm. You can see Mt. Camel on the harbor.  Now, instead of whaling the locals do shellfish farming. Pacific oysters are their specialty.

Mt. Camel at Huahora Harbor... and Ema.  Hi!

Next we drove through Te Kao and the driver chatted us up on the local agriculture.  Apparently sweet potato (kumera) is the main product and way back when they used to  dehydrated it.  But they didn’t just dehydrate it in the sun, they did it in a specific location on a huge flint rock.  We are talking meters and meters wide.  This speds up the dehydration process. 

ice cream shop

We also had to stop for Ice cream at the only dairy within 60 miles.  I have eaten more ice cream in NZ than anywhere else in my travels and only in the last two weeks.  It is always amazing.  I got hokey pokey, my favorite flavor.  Hokey pokey ice cream is vanilla ice cream with little bits of crystallized honey in it.

On the way up to the top we drove past beautiful views of pure white sand dunes and sandy colored sand dunes.   This was original called the dessert coast. Settlers planted trees and grass to stabilize the land.  Apparently this part of New Zealand used to resemble a desert and never was considered inhabitable.  Cattle and sheep farmers repurposed the land and planted a hearty South African grass.  This grass kept the soil in place and provided food for the animals.  Now the majority of the Agriculture in Northland is beef cattle.  The pure white sand we saw on the coast is called silica sand.  This sand is highly prized and is pure white.  It is mined all over the world for producing crystal.  These sand dunes have slowly eroded over time and only recently has the New Zealand started creating barriers to preserve this natural wonder.

silica white sand dunes

In the dunes you can also see fresh water lakes.

beautiful

 

We finally got to the star of the show.  Cape Reinga!  This is a renown leaping-off place of spirits.  A sacred Maori place.  According to mythology, the spirits of the dead travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800 year old pohutukawa tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiki, using the Te Ara Wairua, the 'Spirits' pathway'. At Cape Reinga they depart the mainland. They turn briefly at the Three Kings Islands for one last look back towards the land, then continue on their journey.

It was quite windy that day, especially over by the lighthouse.

 

The main show was not the pretty signs or the light house.  It was the meeting of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean.  You can see the disturbance in the water or tidal race.  This is when the currents are forced through a constriction causing the waves on top of the water.  It was pretty darn magical, that’s what it was.  The bus driver said we were qute lucky to get such a good view.  Often times the horizon is covered in cloud, so you wouldn’t be able to see the surrounding land and sometimes not even the sea.

The meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean

Random fact: The North cape is two kilometers farther north than Cape Reinga.  So Cape Reinga, despite all the tourists, is not the most northern tip of New Zealand.  

Our lunch spot

After our windy photo op we headed out for a picnic lunch provided by the tour.  We had hot tea or coffee, juice, cookies, cheese, granola bars, crackers, slim jims, raisins, and cheesy bacon bread.  I nicked a few extras to snack on when Ashlie and I would hitch later. *shrugs*
 

quick sand river with my toe

The spot was beautiful.  It was in a little cove on the beach.  There was a quicksand river and beautiful rocks along the edges of the cove.  Our driver told us that nude swimmers could stay to the left edge of the beach, but in the end it didn’t really matter.  The beach was a bit too small, everyone would see your naughty bits if they wanted to or not.  Ashlie, Ema and Francine all went for a swim.  I thought they were all nuts.  It was chilly outside, let alone in the water.  Weirdos.

Following our lunch break we headed over to 90 mile beach to do some dune surfing.  To get to the dunes our driver had to drive through a real quicksand river.  On this part of the trip the bus is no longer insured.  This is true for almost any insurance you get in New Zealand.  It will have a clause specific to 90 mile beach, once you’re on it you’re on your own.  The trick to driving on quicksand rivers is to never stop.  If you do, your tires will sink making it quite difficult to move again.  This happens to tourist every year.  The tow truck companies up there must make bank.  In the summer driving in the river is worse because the water is slower flowing.  

Yes this actually happens

Dune boarding actually isn’t as cool as it sounds.  From the name you would think it’s snowboarding on sand.  But it’s more similar to sledding than that.  Climbing to the top was hard.  Walking on sand is difficult, but walking up a sand hill is worse, especially as steep as this one was.  Once you get up there you realize how high it is and it looks scary.  I took the first trip down, out of our girls, and I flipped.  I got sand everywhere.  In my pockets, in my nose, in my hair… just everywhere.

 90 mile beach was next.  The dunes are at the beginning of the 90 kilometers, not 90 miles.  It ended up with the name because of some Europeans that rode it on horseback.  It took them three days to ride the length of the beach, and they knew from previous rides that they could ride 30 miles a day.  But these calculations were wrong because of all the meandering they had to do on 90 mile beach.  When the tide comes up, it comes straight up to the edge of the dunes.  No more beach.   So they would have had to weave between straight stretches of sand and hilly dunes a couple of times a day.

All the girls after dune surfing

hole in the rock

We stopped for a photo shoot of Montipea (horrible spelling, sorry guys), the hole in the rock.  This is considered the last place for spirits to rest before continuing their journey to Cape Reinga.  

Once you are on the beach front you really don’t really want to stop for too long.  There is only a certain amount of time it is safe to drive on the 90 mile beach, about an hour before and after low tide.  If you cut it too close you could end up driving through feet or even meters of water.  The tours are always timed around this little fact, and even with these precautions sometimes buses get stuck out on the beach at the wrong time.  There is only one safe place to pull off when the tide is coming in and actually this year they lost two buses to idiotic drivers.  

ghost buster cleaners!

So on our way back we had plenty of time, but that didn’t stop the bus driver from driving us through.  On the way he entertained us with stories of sharks and seals. The horseback riding story I related to you earlier.  He told a story about a Maori boy who run up and down 90 mile beach in day to relay messages to tribes.  He educated us on wild horses (they are very rare),  gum diggers and shellfish.  I swear this guy could talk all day.  A real nice chap.

We got dropped off right at the 90 Mile Beach Holiday Park, and tucked in for the night.  The next day we worked at the park and waited for Francine’s van to befixed.  Originally we were going to take the bus down to Auckland from Kaitaia, but Francine said she was going the day after anyway.  Also she had a camper van.  The only down side was that one of us would have to sit illegally, in the back.  I didn’t care, Ashlie didn’t care.  So we chipped in for gas and loaded her up.  Off to adventure again!