Today we let the coach take the strain as we
ventured to the very tip of New Zealand’s
North Island;
the place where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea. There are two ways of reaching it – by road
and the route we took, which meant driving along 90km of golden beaches. It didn’t seem to bother the coach driver
that the tide was coming in and in
places our “road” was rather waterlogged.
We then took a right turn following the course of the Te Paki stream which
grooved a path through the sand. It was
fun aquaplaning along this stream, racing with a couple of 4-wheel-drives who thought
they would follow us. The driver had fun
teasing them.
We stopped in front of a group of sand-dune
hills that reminded me of a scene in one of the Carry On films where he joins
the foreign legion. Toboggans were produced from the storage area in the coach
and the long arduous climb up the sandy hill began. The sand was hot under foot and the easiest
ascent was by climbing in someone else’s footprints else it was a case of one step
forward two steps down again. From the
top, it looked an awfully long way down but I sat inside the toboggan, took a
deep breath and was pushed into action.
“You can use your feet as brakes” the driver advised. Somehow I forgot and went hurtling at great
speed, landing in the water at the bottom.
Though I was covered in water and sand, it was great fun and something
well worth experiencing once. I didn’t have a second go.
Next stop was lunch, in the white sandy Tapotupoto Bay.
Some brave tourists donned swimming costumes and went for a quick swim
in the clear blue waters. I watched
their goose-pimpled entry into the sea, revlieved it wasn’t me venturing into the cold
water.
After lunch we continued to Cape Reinga
one of the most significant cultural sites in New Zealand. As well as where two seas meet, the Maori
people believe this is the place where a person’s spirit comes to after death
before departing to Hawaiki, its eternal home.
It was really refreshing to see nothing
commercial at this spot other than a post box and there is obviously a
conscious desire to preserve both nature and the spirituality of the place.
On the way back we took Highway One
(nothing like the M1) that had been cut through the bush. No photograph can truly capture the beauty of
the land, the different shades of green and mauve that seem to vary with the
changing light. Some of the bushes looked like dry bones picked clean of all
flesh. It amazed me how low down the
growth is and how much of the mountains it covered and so different to anything
I have seen before.
The sea too had a depth and intensity of
colour that is hard to capture - neither blue nor green but crystal clear with
layers to the colour that only the eye can capture.
There were just two more stops on the way
home; the first for ice-cream and the second to the Ancient Kauri
Kingdom, where we looked
around the shop and had a drink while the coach was cleaned of sand and salt
water.
Back home we finished the day with a
relaxing soak in the spa pool and I sneaked in a bottle of lager (shhh, don’t
tell anyone.)
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