The top of Northland.

After a splendid drive up round the scenic route with no mad Kiwi driving we arrived in Kaitaia. Kaitaia, let’s just say it’s an odd sort of place where all walks of life live and very little goes on. A little unfair I suppose as it was Easter Saturday. However, evidence of the loony driving antics was apparent here with some of the local types.

The hostel was OK, we had a nice room but it was huge compared to Rons place with 70 beds. It was also full with apart from us a group of Indians originally from Mumbai and now living in Auckland up here on holiday for a few days and a large group of overseas students on an organised weekend away. The kitchen was busy at meal times but there were some splendid curry aromas wafting around even at breakfast time.

We “did Cape Reinga” when we were here last time so this time we wanted to look at what else was in the area. Cape Reinga is the cape at the top of the ninety mile beach peninsula where the Pacific on the west meets the Tasman from the east. It is also a Mauri spiritual place where it is believed all Mauri souls go to after they die.

Ninety mile beach is in fact ninety kilometre beach (I guess mile sounds better, it also competes in length with its Aussie comparator.) It is literally sixty kilometres of straight beach and sand dunes all the way to Cape Reinga.

On the day we arrived after getting established we had a walk into town where nothing was happening apart from “the Warehouse” where we had a final fix then we drove out to the coast at Ahipara to watch the sun go down and see all the locals driving up and down the beach on cars, 4x4’s and quad bikes. It was like the M1 back home!!

We went back after sunset and slept well. The following day we went to look at the southerly entry/exit road to ninety mile beach (see pix) where road rules still apply and some fool had gotten stuck in the sand in his car. The tide was coming in so we had a walk down the beach and had to keep avoiding traffic, unusual for a beach.

We then went back to Ahipara where we had been told we could go dune boarding which involves sitting on a board and hurling yourself down a giant sand dune at breakneck speed. Armed with our dune boards borrowed from the digs we set off on what we were told was a 40 minute walk to the sand dunes. Over an hour later and dodging 17000 4x4’s hurtling down the beach we arrived at aforementioned sand dunes.

They were big see pix but for some reason we couldn’t get the speed we got last time we did it. Could be that last time we had lay on dune boards and these were sitters (techy dune board stuff.) Oh well we tried and had a great walk in the hot blazing sun down a lovely coast. We set off back through the onslaught of cars, bikes and quads then headed back to the digs for a big shower and dinner. Tomorrow we are heading south on the last part of our trip back to Auckland stopping off at Dargaville on the way for a night.

Pix are – first 3 are at 90 mile beach – 2 of folks on the dunes. 2 movies of the dunes.