'Winterless' North: 90 mile beach, sand-boarding and Cape Reinga

So we decided to reach the northernmost part of NZ one day, and I must say it was pretty much fun because of several things:

1) Ride on 90 mile beach

90 mile beach is a narrow, wide and long (I didn't really measure or investigate whether it really is 90 miles, but I guess that is where the name comes from...) piece of north-west coast of NZ North Island. It is classified as a standard road for motor vehicles, so I definitely preferred to take this road up north to the regular asphalt road ;) So we got some information about the tides and other stuff to be aware when driving on a beach and then just started my BUDdys 4wheels and hit the road (well, sand actually :)). We did not take the whole way up north via beach though (as we were warned that the upper parts can get pretty dangerous because of the quicksand and I still have some more plans with my car..), but I must say that I enjoyed the ride very much :) 

Keeping focus all the time 

BUDdy on the 90 mile beach

Pit-stop :)

2) Sand-boarding

After finding out there are pretty big sand dunes on the way to Cape Reinga, I definitely wanted to try sand-boarding... It was a lot of fun, but I must say that it was also quite exhausting to get to the top of the steep dune... And after two rides it started to rain anyway, and you can imagine that the wet sand is not as funny as the dry one ;) But anyway, it was a nice experience just to see and climb that big dunes..

Kawabongaaa

By seeing this picture you can imagine how big the dunes are...

3) Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga was the final destination of our journey up north as it is the northernmost tip of NZ anyway. At least we thought so... The fact is, that there is one more cape on the east coast which is the actual northernmost tip, but it is not accessible... Anyway, Cape Reinga offered a nice views on the connection of Tasman sea and Pacific Ocean and a lot of wind and tourists. Cape Reinga is proclaimed as highly sacred place where all Maori souls 'sail away', so I was a bit disappointed how touristy and developed it got... 

View back to the South

View to the North

Ready to sail away?

After reaching Cape Reinga, we found a nice quiet beach and enjoyed the rest of the day there in order to begin the road back South on the next day...

Even sun went out after we got off on the beach

Fire-starter

We had a few quick stops on the way back South (more on that in the next post) and ended up back in Paihia (Bay of islands) for few days of rest and sun... And Lola needs to find a job here... I am currently thinking about traveling for 2 more weeks and then finding a place to stay and look for some job as well.. Let's see what happens ;)