Danger: Quicksand on beach

Dominic and I spent the last 2 days working all day – running roof lines, cleaning up the place, and finishing the moving of a mound of soil into three raised beds. If John had been here, he would have had us stop work after lunch. But he wasn’t here, and we wanted to make up some hours we lost to rainy days. We’re both leaving John’s place soon, so we wanted to get the soil moved. Plus, working all day yesterday allowed us to take a free day – which we both greatly enjoyed.

We met a tour bus at 9:30a.m about ¼ of a mile up the road from John’s place (we missed the tour through the Kauri Kingdom, but it’s free and I can do it on my way out). It was just starting to lightly rain when the bus finally showed up. We paid our $45 each and took a seat. Our guide was an older Maori man that entertained us all with stories, information, and jokes. He was very interesting, got me to chuckle a few times, and cracked himself up at his own jokes (which is pretty amazing since he’s been doing his spiel 5 times a week for the last 2 years).

The drive took us through many rolling green hills, passed avocado orchards in construction, and up to several scenic outlooks. We stopped at small town store where the driver delivered some eggs and encouraged us to get a huge scoop of ice cream (“women, you’re on vacation so you don’t have to worry about your figures.”) Everyone on the bus took his advice, some opting for a towering 2 scoops! I settled on a “hokey pokey” single scoop – which was still a mountain of ice cream. But boy was it good. It’s the first ice cream I’ve had since arriving in NZ. This was “Tip Top” brand which is made in NZ. I had seen their slogan “It’s ice creamier” above several small shops in Auckland, but had never thought it worth my money to binge on sugar. So I thoroughly enjoyed my purchase today! The “hokey pokey” flavor was kind of buttery, kind of caramelly, but very sweet. It had bits of something crunchy (toffee-like maybe?).

So we all piled back on the bus and headed towards the very tip of the north island – Cape Reinga. We had beautiful views of distant sand dunes through thick mountains of bush. On the east side (Pacific Ocean), the sand is very white and extremely fine (we stopped at one of the beaches). On the west side (Tasman Sea), the sand is golden and coarse. Don’t ask me why the difference, I didn’t think to ask then and our guide didn’t say. Located on the end of Cape Reinga is a lighthouse. There is supposed to be a sign post listing kilometer distances to various locations, but all of the place names had been broken off (except London and Sydney). I had my picture taken with it anyway.

Below the lighthouse, the Pacific and the Tasman meet. It was really pretty neat to see. Both oceans had waves traveling in opposite directions, so where they met they crashed together! It was a decently windy day (we’ve had A LOT of wind lately – another front moving in), so some of the crashes were quite violent. The only other place I’ve visited where two seas met, was Cabo San Lucas (this year actually) where the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez meet. However, I was on a boat at the time and I didn’t get the overview of the two meeting. I don’t recall the waves crashing together.

After piling back on the bus, we took a short trip down to a beach on the Pacific side of the Cape. Our guide set out lunch while we all checked out the rocks and tide pools (not much life there – clear water, some seaweed/algae growth in the pools, small mussels and barnacles on the rocks, and a few limpets and snails here and there – but no submerged barnacles for viewing :( (that’s sort of an inside joke – I did a small research experiment on barnacles in Alaska – I really do enjoy watching their feathery legs wave around feeding). Lunch was great – sweet scones and butter, tea (so so much tea is drank here!), and various other packaged snacks. Our guide encouraged us all to take the extras. No need to tell me twice! I took another scone and many of the snacks. (They’re now safely in my car for emergency stores :)

Once our blood sugar levels were back up to ice cream levels, we piled back in the bus and headed towards Ninety Mile Beach – a golden beach stretching from the Cape down past John’s place. It’s really only a total of 70km or so, but it’s still quite long. The Maori’s have a native name for it, which translates into “long beach”. Captain Cook called the whole area “desert coast” because the whole area was covered in massive golden sand dunes. Our bus driver took us past the warning sign, through the parking lot, and into the stream. We drove down the wide, shallow stream at a speed that allowed us not to get stuck and also not get water in the engine. It’s quite common for locals to drive on the beach, but if you’re not local, or not with a local, it is highly recommended that you DO NOT drive into the stream and onto the beach. The tides create areas of quicksand that WILL eat your car if you park on it. Our guide encountered some tourists that had done just that- except it was a rental car, and the fine print on the rental agreement states you will not drive on a beach!!! They are out a bit of money!

So, back to our bus and local driver in the stream bed: Eventually our guide found a dry stream shoulder to park on and had us pile out. He handed out toboggans to everyone that wanted one, showed us how they worked, and then said “have fun”. Almost everyone (2 older people and our guide declined) crossed the stream and hiked up one of the steep sand dunes we’d been following. While I wasn’t the first to reach the top (whew, it was a bit of work and I was breathing hard), but I was the first to give “sand tobogganing a try. It was excellent. Despite the necessity of having to put your legs straight out in front (flash back to Cascade fiasco), I managed not to fall off the sled, let alone break, bruise, or scrape anything. After 4 runs (a couple of which did involve rolling over), I pretty much had sand EVERYWHERE (I can still rub some out of the corner of my eyes!). It was a really fun time.

As we were waiting for everyone to cross the stream and get on the bus, one guy (from another company and using a something more like a boogie board) went down the dune on his stomach, hydroplaned across the stream, and came to a stop on the other side!!! Way cool.

Once we were all piled pack on the bus, we headed up the stream again. We came out on Ninety Mile Beach. The bus driver drove us in a circle to view the tip of the beach and its’ massive dunes and then started south down the coast of the Tasman Sea. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t stop the bus and let us take any photos, as we had an excellent chance to see the natural dune state of the beach, as well as a perfect photo opportunity for a “hole in the rock” island. However, he kept driving and pretty soon the dunes on our left were in their unnatural, forestry state. The farmers of the area complained about sand getting in their fields, so the forestry department said they would fix it. They planted several deep rooting grasses, then followed up with lupine (which puts nitrogen in the soil) and then eventually planted California pine trees. The trees have done very well – so the coastline has grass covered dunes in the foreground and green undulating forest in the background. The “hole in the rock” island slid by on our right side. First the view of the hole was gone (large enough and deep enough to take a boat through) and then the island was behind us, gradually disappearing in the distance. By the time we stopped at our next designated photo spot, the island was way off in the mist with no indication of a hole going through it (though, my zoom did manage to get a decent shot, though non-detailed shot).

I took a few more pictures, had Dominic take a picture of me, and took some video of the crashing waves (more my dad to enjoy someday, if I ever get a DVD of photos made and mailed). Then we all piled back on the bus and headed down the beach some more. I think I saw a seal way up on the beach (I’m pretty sure the few other driftwood I’d seen didn’t have whiskers), but we were travelling so fast I barely had time to register what I was seeing, let alone take a picture. I did get several good pictures of rainbows though! We saw them all day! We had a few misty rains when we were off the bus, but for the most part the weather was excellent.

Our journey ended where it began. Our bus driver exited the beach at the end of the road by Lake Ngatu (where I had parked my car and wandered around slightly over a week ago – while I was waiting for directions to John’s place). Our guide didn’t forget about dropping us off, and pulled over in front of the elementary school where he had picked us up. While the tour was lacking in the one photo op and I would have loved to hear more Maori stories, I gave the guy a decent tip and jumped off with sand still sticking to my bare feet.