Kia Ora from New Zealand

Kia ora everyone, from across the Tasman Sea. Yes I am in New Zealand now at the start of 6 weeks of (hopefully) mad and exciting things - such as ..... well, you will just have to wait and see :)

OK, this week I have been right to the top of the country, right up to Cape Reinga (pron. Ray-angger). The Kiwi Ex bus went up to Paihia (pron. pie-hear) and it is a tourist town with not a lot in the town, but is 2km from the place where the Waitangi agreement was signed between the English and Maori (pron. marlee) people. The Base Hostel was not exactly a bundle of laughs in terms of comfort, and was full of UK teenagers whose sole aim was to get off their head with drink until about 3am, but anyway, that is life on the road on a budget.

Anyway, I wasn't there for the hostel! On Thursday I had to be up at 6.00 (yet another early morning start), and thankfully the rain and mist of the day before (just like the UK in the winter) had gone away to bring a lovely sunny and blue-sky day. The Kiwi Ex partners, Awesome Adventures, collected us. The driver seemed to have springs for legs as he bounded everywhere! We drove for about 4 hours up SH1 (State Highway 1) which runs right from the Cape in the north to Bluff (by Invercargill) in the south (about 2000kms!). Eventually we got to Cape Reinga and had about 1km walk to the Cape. The walk was worth it - it is beautiful. Very high cliffs, headlands off to the left, in the Tasman Sea, with interconnecting deserted golden beaches and lines of surf rippling in ribbons onto the long shallow beach, and to the right in the South Pacific Ocean, just miles of cliffs and beaches.

BUT the most fascinating thing was actually seeing the 2 oceans meet. From the left the Tasman Sea came in from left to right, and at the "junction" in the ocean, the South Pacific waves broke from right to left - yes you could actually see that in the white tops of the waves breaking. It is hard to explain in words, but it was as if there was a huge dip in the sea and the oceans collided and went down the dip, taking the white tops as they went. Quite amazing.

What I thought was interesting is that no food or drink is allowed on the Cape. It is regarded as the most sacred site for Maori people, where their spirits go after death and so the site is kept as pristine as possible. It also means (in practical terms) that you don't get tourists dropping all their litter somewhere, and for a site with so much human traffic every day, that has to be a good thing.

Well we left there, sun still shining, and went down the Te Paki stream, literally driving down a shallow river ... to the SAND DUNES for proper sandboarding. Yes this time we had body boards, and the dunes were about 100m high - very hard on the unfit legs to climb up. We had to lie face down on the board, grip with wrists and elbows, and push off down a slope of about 80degrees! The highest speed on the slope has been clocked at about 75kmph, but I didn't get that fast. Feet are used as a brake and steering and on my second go (yes I trudged up that slope twice) I misjudged the steering and got a complete faceful of sand - eyes, ears, mouth, hair, down my top front and back, in my underwear (AGAIN!). However it was great fun and felt a lot safer than the one in WA, in that I could control the steering this time! One guy went so fast he ended up in the stream at the bottom and got a dunking!

And finally for the day, we drove along Ninety Mile Beach (well about 65 miles actually). It was low tide and so we got all the way along, at about 70kmph and bouncing around the sand-ripples and into the small streams coming down from the land-side. Great fun and such a wonderful stretch of sand.

Back to Auckland today, where the sun has come out again, after more rain in Paihia.

Starting my journey south tomorrow, first top Whitianga/Mercury Bay and the Hot Water Beach.

Kia Ora for now