Ahipara

Today we woke up to a pretty sunny morning and spent quite a chunk of the nice morning sat inside the motel kitchen trying to sort out my now lost phone and robs stolen phone claim. Grrrr... such a pain! On the plus side there was a toaster! 😀

The lady at the motel, Kim, was really helpful and allowed us stay longer than we should and gave us police details so we could go and report it as lost.

That was the first stop of the day in Kaitaia and it was pretty quick and easy to report which is good. Fingers crossed we hear something and a kind person has handed it in.

Next stop a food stock up and then on to the 90 mile beach and Cape Reinga at the top of New Zealand.

We stopped at a lake on the way and we were there a while whilst I tried to take some tablets to stop my tummy cramps 😩and whilst we had a debate about Worcester sauce lol. (This has become the brown sauce Adele lol).

After a very short spell of rain and cloud we got on the way again as the thought of sitting in the camper all day was worse than the cramps.
The views along the road that meanders through the countryside to the right of 90mile beach were once again beautiful. A cross between the Yorkshire Dales and rainforest. There were so so so many sheep too, at one point I could see more sheep than grass, or was like the clouds themselves had rained down from the sky! Lots of cows too, black and white, brown and black, so many colours and they are very much left to it, some of them wandering through small bits of forest and others just chilling on the grass. A really beautifully green stretch of driving.... something that's becoming quite a theme! Oh and not forgetting that it is spring here so there are lots of baby lambs and calfs all over! They are adorable 🤗😀☺️🐮
Lots of birds too, we keep seeing birds of prey that seem to act like kestrels but are much larger. One was sat by the side of the road with its kill and didn't even flinch when we had to swerve around it. It stood its ground staring us out lol.

We were getting quite hungry by now as it was almost three and we still hadn't eaten lunch 😔we kept missing the turnings into the bays where we could eat as they appeared just around the bends and so it was a while before we finally saw a sign for some 'GIANT SAND DUNES!! 🙀😵🤗😝

We obviously decided this was something we needed see and we had seen glimpses of what looked like sandy yellow mountains in the distance so we were pretty excited to see them up close.
On the road to the sand dunes we passed a sign that told us to continue at our own risk....the beach road can be dangerous either side of the tide and many a car has been lost. We had hoped to drive back down the beach as it is a highway but decided we need the car and had no way of checking tide times 😔 the road still took us to the dunes though and as we turned a corner they appeared in our view and they were huge!! We have been in desert on South America but you expect sand in a desert, and you expect dunes too, but here we had a woodland/jungle forest on one side and basically the Yorkshire Dales where sheep were grazing on the other. It looked so random and especially at the size they were! We had some lunch from the back of the car and then walked up the dune closest to us. It wasn't the highest of the bunch but after a steep climb, where every foot slips down the sand on every step, I wasn't too disappointed by that. Some people had brought body boards to slide down on which looked great but we hadn't hired any 🙁it was a fantastic view though and getting down was still pretty fun trying to stay on your feet!

Next stop was Cape Reinga! When we got there was information about the spiritual significance of the area and of the Cape to the Maoris. It is the most significant spiritual place to them as they believe this is where the spirit leaves when a person dies and that from here it returns to the homeland. Along the walking route there were other signs and information too, more detail about where the spirits are believed to go and of the surrounding wildlife. The rocks here are volcanic from eruptions under the sea years ago and they lack minerals and phosphorous and calcium, which means lots of the plants here are endemic to the area.
We got to the tip of the Cape and here is also where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. To the left the Tasman Sea is extremely rough with the buffeting wind and there are large swells and waves breaking far out to sea. It actually helps protect the wildlife here from swimming predators like rats. The Pacific to the right on the other hand is very calm. The Maoris believe this is symbolic of the Male and Female forms and the whirlpools often created between the two represent new life.
Our drive back was similar to the one there, once again beautiful views and we stopped a couple of times for pictures of the view and the birds. We also decided to try the radio now we have no phone music and found a great rock music station that we hope remains in range for a long time!

We were looking for the campsite that we had hopes to stay in last night as the motel is a bit pricey but after driving up and down the first section of 90 mile beach road for some time we gave up looking with a our lack of internet data and went back to the Motel. On the plus side we figured we could wash our smelly sulphur clothes. This was a mistake! It was a cold washing machine only and it barely did a thing... in fact because we washed our towels too, they just came out smelling of sulphur too 😩

We also arrived a lot later than planned and as we had bought minced meat earlier we needed to do some proper cooking, donor looked like we would be eating late with the bugs! On the plus side we had beef, onion, garlic and courgette to add to the mix, so it was a pretty delicious spag bol 😬🍝 and went down well with a lovely rum and coke!

Fortunately the bugs weren't too bad and we didn't require lights due to the motel being nearby so we ate under the stars and spotted Scorpio above the horizon.

After a bit more faffing online about our phones and some phone calls home we called it a night and headed to bed.Read more