Cape Reinga, 90 mile beach and fish & chips again - 24th Nov

Getting anywhere in NZ involves a lot of driving. Given our schedule we have prepared ourselves for that and so prior to arriving in the Bay of Islands we had discussed making the most of the hire car and driving ourself to Cage Reinga at the northernmost tip of the North Island situated on the Aupori Peninsula.

However, the guidebook, and indeed everyone we spoke to in Paihia, strongly advised against it. Not only was the drive the best part of a 6 hour round trip it also meant that you could not experience driving along 90 mile beach on the west coast of the peninsula; or you could but you would struggle to get your car onto and then more importantly off the beach and finally it would not be insured.

With all this in mind we booked on a coach trip instead, paying the best part of £70pp for the privilege. The tour we went on was called Dune Rider – a name that instilled a air of confidence that the ride along the beach would be a safe and a successful one.

Our driver, Paul, was a very jovial chap who went through his patter eloquently and displayed strong knowledge of the core subjects of the trip as well as a lot of other themes only tenuously related. Outside of the advertised attractions he showed us a number of “silly fences” that seem to be a feature of places too small to call themselves a town or not able to procure a larger than life fibreglass carrot, boot or kiwi. He also showed us one of his top 5 favourite bridges (for the record a horseshoe shaped one) and 3 out of the 5 biggest Pa in the Northland (a Pa being a Maori hilltop defence).

The tour comprised of six main elements:

• A visit to the gum-diggers park – very interesting and involved telling the story of people digging to find ancient flattened, buried, peat-preserved Kauri forests to gather the naturally created 'gum' they secreted which could then be used as jewellery (similar to amber) or wood polish. Kauri are massive trees, and I mean massive, that are native only to NZ.
• A walk to Cape Reinga – this is the most northerly of NZ and where the Tasman sea on the west coast meets the Pacific on the East side.

• Sand-boarding – flying down large, steep sand-dunes on a boogie board. Good fun, wet and sandy.

• Drive along 90 mile beach – it is actually only 64 miles in length!?! Even though the beach is part of the state highway system not even the tour company bus was insured. We actually saw people stuck in the sand. Paul slowed the coach to offer assistance however the people declined our help for some bizarre reason.

They are not stuck - just a photo opportunity!

The machine

•  A visit to a kauri workshop. The workshps biggest claim to fame was the spiral staircase that was cut into the inside of a kauri trunk a huge 3 and a half metres in diameter.

• A stop off at the 'world famous' Mangonui fish and chip shop – it actually lived up to the hype and both the snapper and chips were well cooked and very tasty. It was the 2^nd set of fish and chips in as many days... not very healthy. We have found eating healthy or at least trying to a real challenge whilst travelling.

Despite the significant time spent sitting on the coach travelling we ended up really enjoying the trip even though at times we did feel that we were being herded from one attraction to another with a stopwatch on us every time we stepped off the bus – in this case a trade off worth it to be able to do as much as we did.

We got back to our place and slept.