| NEW ZEALAND- December 2004 |
| Claire Rosemary Jane, Children's Author |
| Visit to New Zealand |
| Links Tsunami New Zealand homepage New Zealand Index page Tsunami Towns and Cities: Auckland Wellington Christchurch Invercargill Nelson Picton Greymouth Queenstown Napier Gisborne Taupo Rotorua Paihia Specific Excursions: Franz Joseph glacier. Stewart Island Ulva island Southern Alps The Tongariro Crossing Cape Reinga Christmas Day in Rotorua Travelling Currency. |
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| Cape Reinga |
| My main website is at http://clairerosemaryjane.co.uk |
| T his was the last of the specific places that I wanted to visit, and the most northerly of the places that I visited. In fact, I went on one of the specific excursions to the Far North, the only easy way for me to have done so, and I am very glad that I did, for not only was it a most foul day weather wise, but I was able to sit at the very front of the coach, alongside Tai, our Maori driver, a most interesting person with whom to talk. The trip itself, with "Northern Exposure" tours, was very much the standard fare for this particular excursion. We commenced by going to the Puketi Kauri Forest to see the enormous kauri trees. Then it was on along the north-east coast to Mangonui. The day had started dry but dull, but by now it was absolutely pouring down which was going to rather take the edge off the tour. For when we reached Cape Reinga itself the rain was blowing sideways, in a really strong wind just like I had experienced years before at Land's End in Cornwall. I walked down to the lighthouse, and well what did I find? A signpost pointing to various parts of the world including London, just like at Land's End, except that this one told me they it was 10499 nautical miles to London! Well at least I had made it to the far north of New Zealand, but this was supposed to be the hot end of the country and it was actually cold! After a relatively short stop therefore at Cape Reinga, whilst we ate lunch and waited for the tide to be more favourable for the journey down the 90 mile beach, we retraced our route to join the road to take us to the quicksand stream. Just how a coach can drive down what is essentially a stream about 3 inches deep escaped me. But it did! And when we reached the great sand dunes it was still blowing hard and raining fairly steadily, but Tai was determined that some people at least would "enjoy" sand surfing down the the dunes and not just any of the dunes but one of the highest ones at that. Much to my own surprise I seemed to be almost the first to take up the challenge on such a lousy day, in fact to start with there were only three of us, but once the others saw that some of us at least had the courage to have a go despite the weather, a few others joined us as well including Tai himself, who apparently does this regularly! He told me later that quite a lot of the sand from the 90 Mile beach regularly ended up back at his home at the end of the day. By the time I had staggered to the very top of the sand dune, (by far the worst thing for me was the actual climb up, carrying what amounted to a plastic sail in the shape of a surfboard in this high wind), I was left me breathless as usual. The downhill ride was not unlike sledging down Red Hill on Malvern Link Common, something I had done way back as a child on sheets of cardboard, except for the fact that this time I ended up swallowing about half a mouthful of sand. Ugh! However I think it WAS worth it for what must have amounted to somewhere in the region of 30 seconds to get to the bottom again. Ninety Mile Beach, (and yes they really do drive the coaches down the beach) is in actual fact about 64 miles long. Finally leaving 90 mile beach, we retraced our route back to Paihia, but not before stopping on the way back for fish and chips. It would seem that New Zealanders have a similar liking for fish and chips to the British, something that no doubt the first colonials took out with them when they left Great Britian for their new homeland. |