Tour to Cape Reinga

Leaving the Bay of Islands and Paihia in the early morning...

A full day...literally.....some 11 hours in travel and touring to the Northern most point in New Zealand...Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean.  One of the more interesting activities of this day was what is called a "Ninety Mile Beach" drive....in this bus

and on this sand/water of the Tasman Sea....

You can see a bus in the distance...but he is in the sand...we are in the water!! And this continues..well not for ninety miles...more like 30....we did stop for a dip in the ocean...everyone off with the shoes and step off the bus into the water....hey...is that a Rapteez shirt man on the beach?  Sure is....

Then off to the sandboarding area and some quick sand streams....Here are the sand boarders....you will not see me in the picture because I opted out....yeah...right...

This was not a picture from the quick sand streams otherwise it would be much higher up on the bus...but it does show what happens if a bus ventures into the "wrong" parking spot....Oh, this is not our bus....

Leaving the sand and the bus in the mud it is on to Cape Reinga...departing place of the Maori spirits where the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean meet.  The lighthouse was shifted here in 1941 and flashes every 26 seconds and can be seen some 50km away.

Yeah it was a long walk down and an even further walk back up...but not as far as back to Washington which according to this would be approximately 8,000 miles.....

Finally, as the journey returns to Paihia and the Bay of Islands it is a tour of the Puketi Kauri Forest.  This gives me an up close and personal view of the immense size of these Kauri trees.  One can only imagine the Maori arriving in New Zealand and going into think tropical forest such as these and having to make some type of pathway.  But they did and found these immense trees which provides many uses for the Maori.  They often traveled from their native Polynesian islands to the New found New Zealand to hunt and fish and then make the journey back with their bounty

Tomorrow I return to Auckland to complete my tour of New Zealand but not before I cruise the Bay of Islands and take a ride thru the "Hole in the Rock"...