Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Going to Cape Reinga
Heya everyone!
Yesterday was a verrry busy day for us. We had to wake up at 6:15 am because our Dune Riders tour (included in the price of the Patch Trip to the Bay of Islands) bus was supposed to pick us up around 7:00 am. We were out there on time, but the bus was 20 minutes late. Later, we found out that the two other Americans (Brandon and Jordan) on the trip with us decided to tour around on their own, missing out on sandboarding!
Oh and also, I wanted to say that Henk forgot to tell you about the colorful sheep we saw! When we were driving north towards Paihia, we passed a place called Sheep World. Lucky, our tour guide, explained to us that New Zealand was experimenting with genetically modifying sheep to be born in a variety of bright colors, so the need to dye their wool post-sheering isn’t necessary. Basically, we looked to the left out the window and saw a whole bunch of bright pink sheep staring back at us! Freaky…
Once we got on the bus, Henk realized that he recognized the driver from the last time he did the tour… I guess 4 years later that guy still isn’t sick of it yet. Our first stop was at the location of a former Maori fortification called a Pa… but it wasn’t there anymore, so we just had a really good lookout point to take pictures from instead. We stopped for some hot chocolate (Henk’s gotten into the habit of getting me hot chocolate in the mornings since I’m always freezing cold despite all my jackets I layer on) and to get some sandwiches for lunch later on.
Then it was time to ride in the bus along 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only a 90 kilometer beach – or only 73 miles) … a vastly empty but amazingly clean looking beach, except for the occasional car buried in the sand. I saw a car window sticking out of the ground, the rest of the car sunk deep under the sand! We got to spend some time walking on the beach, and even climbed up the hill a bit to take pictures of wild horses our driver spotted and another famous New Zealand hole in the rock. (They can’t seem to keep any of their rocks in one piece.)
Sandboarding! Even though I’ve already been sandboarding on sand dunes when I went to Peru with my mom, I was a bit nervous to try it again. And this time rather than taking a 4x4 up the dunes like I did in South America; we had to walk our asses all the way up the huge dune – twice! But it was worth it. :D It was pretty fun sliding down dunes again, even though I dug my feet in the sand pretty quickly so I wouldn’t end up going too fast. Henk raced right down, of course! And I got to watch him. :D
By now it was around 1:30 pm, but our really long day was far from over. We hadn’t even reached our main attraction yet: Cape Reinga. Cape Reinga is the famous area in New Zealand where the Tasman Sea (known as the male sea ‘Te Moana ta Pukapuka o Tawhaki’ to the Maori) is separated from the Pacific Ocean (the female sea ‘Te Tai o Whitireia.’) For the Maori, the cape is where a person’s spirit comes after death and departs for their eternal home. It’s easy to see why the Maori would think this – the cape was beautiful. If we didn’t know there was more out there, it would seem this could be where the world might end.
As we walked closer to the cape, we learned the story behind the area’s name: The beach surrounding Cape Reinga became known as the Spirits Bay nearly 700 years ago, after the ancestor Tohe departed from it to visit his daughter who lived far away. He was very old, and his people feared he would die before he returned. He said to them, ‘Kapohia taku wairua!’ That is, if his wairua (spirit) passed that way on its final journey, his people should reach out and catch it, not let it go on.
At the end of the Cape sat a little lighthouse built in the 1940’s, and a cool sign pointing out the direction to major cities around the globe. The perfect spot for some dramatic photos. :D
Our last stops of the day had to do with Amber, called Gum here in New Zealand for some reason: Gumdiggers Park and a staircase made from a Kauri tree. Gumdiggers is an ancient buried Kauri forest, Kauri being huge trees containing amber, now protected but farmed in the past. I thought the coolest thing was the 150,000 year old giant Kauri tree stump (the oldest known non-fossilized wood on earth,) measuring about 100 feet in its girth. The later stop, the staircase, was kinda boring but we got a lot of really cool pictures there with some pretty weird looking furniture made of Kauri.
Before starting the drive home, our guide had the great plan of stopping for some fish and chips in Mangonui. I usually am not a huge fan of fish, but we had a fish called bluenose which turned out to be a really delicious fish! I recommend giving it a try if you’re not a huge fish fan. :D Henk and I ended the day with some ice-cream for the bus-ride back to the hostel. And he wants to add that it was his idea and he bought it for me. :D
Today we slept in a bit, and are just relaxing waiting for the bus to bring us back to Auckland around 2:00 pm. We should get into the city around 5:00 pm, so we’ll try and grab some groceries before we get on the bus so we can head right to the hostel once we get back to Auckland. By the way, Henk beat me at Golden Axe (FINALLY, and only because he discovered you can use skills and I didn’t know that) so everyone needs to buy me Golden Axe guidebooks so I can beat him again!
Francesca
Yesterday was a verrry busy day for us. We had to wake up at 6:15 am because our Dune Riders tour (included in the price of the Patch Trip to the Bay of Islands) bus was supposed to pick us up around 7:00 am. We were out there on time, but the bus was 20 minutes late. Later, we found out that the two other Americans (Brandon and Jordan) on the trip with us decided to tour around on their own, missing out on sandboarding!
Oh and also, I wanted to say that Henk forgot to tell you about the colorful sheep we saw! When we were driving north towards Paihia, we passed a place called Sheep World. Lucky, our tour guide, explained to us that New Zealand was experimenting with genetically modifying sheep to be born in a variety of bright colors, so the need to dye their wool post-sheering isn’t necessary. Basically, we looked to the left out the window and saw a whole bunch of bright pink sheep staring back at us! Freaky…
Once we got on the bus, Henk realized that he recognized the driver from the last time he did the tour… I guess 4 years later that guy still isn’t sick of it yet. Our first stop was at the location of a former Maori fortification called a Pa… but it wasn’t there anymore, so we just had a really good lookout point to take pictures from instead. We stopped for some hot chocolate (Henk’s gotten into the habit of getting me hot chocolate in the mornings since I’m always freezing cold despite all my jackets I layer on) and to get some sandwiches for lunch later on.
Then it was time to ride in the bus along 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only a 90 kilometer beach – or only 73 miles) … a vastly empty but amazingly clean looking beach, except for the occasional car buried in the sand. I saw a car window sticking out of the ground, the rest of the car sunk deep under the sand! We got to spend some time walking on the beach, and even climbed up the hill a bit to take pictures of wild horses our driver spotted and another famous New Zealand hole in the rock. (They can’t seem to keep any of their rocks in one piece.)
Sandboarding! Even though I’ve already been sandboarding on sand dunes when I went to Peru with my mom, I was a bit nervous to try it again. And this time rather than taking a 4x4 up the dunes like I did in South America; we had to walk our asses all the way up the huge dune – twice! But it was worth it. :D It was pretty fun sliding down dunes again, even though I dug my feet in the sand pretty quickly so I wouldn’t end up going too fast. Henk raced right down, of course! And I got to watch him. :D
By now it was around 1:30 pm, but our really long day was far from over. We hadn’t even reached our main attraction yet: Cape Reinga. Cape Reinga is the famous area in New Zealand where the Tasman Sea (known as the male sea ‘Te Moana ta Pukapuka o Tawhaki’ to the Maori) is separated from the Pacific Ocean (the female sea ‘Te Tai o Whitireia.’) For the Maori, the cape is where a person’s spirit comes after death and departs for their eternal home. It’s easy to see why the Maori would think this – the cape was beautiful. If we didn’t know there was more out there, it would seem this could be where the world might end.
As we walked closer to the cape, we learned the story behind the area’s name: The beach surrounding Cape Reinga became known as the Spirits Bay nearly 700 years ago, after the ancestor Tohe departed from it to visit his daughter who lived far away. He was very old, and his people feared he would die before he returned. He said to them, ‘Kapohia taku wairua!’ That is, if his wairua (spirit) passed that way on its final journey, his people should reach out and catch it, not let it go on.
At the end of the Cape sat a little lighthouse built in the 1940’s, and a cool sign pointing out the direction to major cities around the globe. The perfect spot for some dramatic photos. :D
Our last stops of the day had to do with Amber, called Gum here in New Zealand for some reason: Gumdiggers Park and a staircase made from a Kauri tree. Gumdiggers is an ancient buried Kauri forest, Kauri being huge trees containing amber, now protected but farmed in the past. I thought the coolest thing was the 150,000 year old giant Kauri tree stump (the oldest known non-fossilized wood on earth,) measuring about 100 feet in its girth. The later stop, the staircase, was kinda boring but we got a lot of really cool pictures there with some pretty weird looking furniture made of Kauri.
Before starting the drive home, our guide had the great plan of stopping for some fish and chips in Mangonui. I usually am not a huge fan of fish, but we had a fish called bluenose which turned out to be a really delicious fish! I recommend giving it a try if you’re not a huge fish fan. :D Henk and I ended the day with some ice-cream for the bus-ride back to the hostel. And he wants to add that it was his idea and he bought it for me. :D
Today we slept in a bit, and are just relaxing waiting for the bus to bring us back to Auckland around 2:00 pm. We should get into the city around 5:00 pm, so we’ll try and grab some groceries before we get on the bus so we can head right to the hostel once we get back to Auckland. By the way, Henk beat me at Golden Axe (FINALLY, and only because he discovered you can use skills and I didn’t know that) so everyone needs to buy me Golden Axe guidebooks so I can beat him again!
Francesca
1 Comments:
Greetings guys, hope you are having a great time, the pics are great. Hugs and kisses
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