Cape Reinga

We started the drive up to Cape Reinga and checked out the first access to 90-mile beach (actually "only" 100km long). Big busses take lots of tourists out here to drive on the hard, wet sand of the beach. The busses were doing donuts where we were, to eventually line up the bus to the “offramp” through the soft sand of the dunes. Cars can go on too, but we wouldn't take the chance with our "home on wheels".

As we continued, we picked up two hitchhikers, Alex and Michael. One could sit in the back seat, and the other on the bed. They’re from Cambridge, England and were starting an awesome trip as well. They were hitchhiking to the Northern tip, and then planned to hike all the way to the Southern tip (about 3000km in 5 months, 2 weeks). Turns out they’re brothers and left behind one angry/upset sister who also wanted to come along. But she had to finish her last school year. They had only managed to get short (some just 5 minute) rides and they were stoked we were taking them all the way to the top, including a campsite on the way.

They recommended getting motorcycles to tour Vietnam. They introduced us to Cryptic Crosswords. We had a long discussion about what makes a sandwich, and how it was first invented by the Earl of Sandwich (a town). He wanted something easy to eat with one hand, that wasn’t messy, so he could keep playing cards in his other hand. We talked a bit about the history of salt and how it’s in our language (like salary - since people used to be payed in salt, town names ending in “wich” – the name for salt mines). We shared Leslie's NZ pineapple lumps and jaffas and her stories about them. They told us about jaffa cakes back in the UK, and that Jaffa is a type of orange from a region in Palestine by the same name. They’re hard to come by now with tensions between Palestine and Israel.

We walked around at Cape Reinga. This is the Northern-most (accessible) tip of NZ. Currents (and wind) from both the Tasman Sea (east) and Pacific Ocean (west) collide up here, creating cool waves down far below (look closely at the crossing waves in the second picture). A large Puhetakawa tree grew in the side of a large rock, constantly exposed to salt spray. It was old but had never been seen to flower. The Maori found this a spiritual place, where spirits would step down the roots of the tree and depart from the island.

We shared tea and food, ate at the "dinnertable" in the van and they set up their tent, protected from the wind by our van.

In the morning, we took a look down by the riverbed. Alex, Michael and Mats went down where the flowing river rushed into the crashing waves of the ocean. It wasn’t as chilly as it had been at other beaches. We traded some bites of our versions of oatmeal/porridge, our flavours of tea, and e-mail addresses. We then drove back to Cape Reinga, the start of their 5.5 month hike.

Abel Tasman (Dutch) was the first European to discover New Zealand. The Tasman Sea, Tasmania (Australia) and a few other places are named after him. Cook (England) and Survelle (France) soon explored here too. They were here at the same time but never ran into each other. At first glance, that seems strange. They were the only people here, why not "meet up"? But then again, the country is pretty big and the chances of spotting each other on the vast ocean is probably not that great.

The guys took their packs (90L, 25kg each!) and disappeared behind the hills. We had no choice but to start heading South again too.Read more