Two Years in KiwiLand: 90 Mile Beach and Cape Reinga

So I had a week off of work in September. The original plan was to meet up with my buddy, Keith, in Thailand or somewhere else in Asia but those plans fell through so I had a week to spend around New Zealand. My buddy, Paul also had a couple of days off so we decided to head up North for a bit. This was my first time heading north of Auckland.

Paul and I drove up to Keri Keri and stayed at the Top 10 Holiday Park there. The weather wasn't supposed to be good the next day and we had planned to take a trip out to 90 Mile Beach so we tried to reschedule to the following day. To our luck as it turned out, they were not able to reschedule.

90 Mile beach is actually only about 55 miles long (why kiwis? no one knows). It's well known as it is also considered to be a road and able to be driven on by 4-wheel drive vehicles. While we did have the Beast with us, Paul and I decided to take the tour instead as it would eliminate our need to drive and we would have boards available to bodyboard the famous sand dunes.

The drive up north was not looking promising as it was overcast the whole way and raining, however we were lucky that as we approached the beach, the weather cleared and it ended up being a beautiful day.

The drive along the beach was beautiful. We made several stops to take in the scenery. The sand was full of shellfish (Tuatuas) which you could pretty much dig out by the dozen everywhere you went.

The next stop was the famous sand dunes. We were all given body boards and had to hike to the top of the dunes (a steep and tiring walk) where we then took a running start and surfed headfirst down the dunes ending in the river below. Paul and I did this 3 or 4 times before tiring out from the hikes up the dunes. On the last ride down, a group of 5 of us decided to race down the dunes. This didn't work out as expected as I collided with another guy in front causing a chain reaction of all of us wiping out and tumbling down the hill. Everyone was OK after getting the sand out of our ears, eyes, and nostrils.

After a further drive, we ended up at Cape Reinga which is the furthest northern point on the main land of New Zealand. There is a famous lighthouse there and it is a very important Maori spiritual site. This is also where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean and you can see the different currents come together.

After a long drive back, we were going to stay another night in Keri Keri but the hotel had cockroaches running around and we weren't sure what we would do the following day anyway so we decided to head back to Auckland and go golfing the following day. It was another great trip.