Waihi Stream

First of all: Today has been by far the best day of my trip so far😀Again I had to get up rather early because I was picked up by a tourbus at 7:20. Sunrise was just over and it looked like another beautiful summer day. We were a group of sixteen people heading up north to the Ninety Mile Beach and Cape Reinga, the most northern point of New Zealand where Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean come together. Our driver and guide was a funny guy and had prepared a nice playlist for the long drive. Our first stop was Puketi forest and I have to say I was completely flashed by this awesome beauty of nature with many ferns, so many different tones of green and the quietness - except from the birds - that originated from the forest. The actual highlights were the Kauri trees - the tallest trees in New Zealand -, but for me it was the forest in total. Unfortunately, we had only 10 minutes in the forest, I could have spent at least half a day there. I think, that was the first moment of my trip when I really felt why I wanted to come to New Zealand and to do this journey. The further drive went through landscape I would call a mixture between Central European and Mediteranean. When we arrived at Ninety Mile Beach, the driver had to check the entrance way first and then he drove with high speed through the deep sand close to the dunes to reach the flatter and harder part of the beach. Ninety Mile Beach is an official highway! Well apparently it was too fast because the fan belt tore and it took about two hours for a mechanic to come and fix it. So, we had a very long stop on the - particularly because of its dimensions - impressive beach. Although being a highway there was not much traffic. Two hours later we could finally drive on the beach. After driving on the beach we made our way further towards Cape Reinga, but one more highlight waited before: Sandboarding on a huge and beautiful dune. That was real fun, but also exhausting walking up the dune. Anyway, it was worth it. I was the only one doing it four times😄Read more