Completely touristy, but we don't have time to do the Bay of Islands any other way. We set off in a drenching, Houstonian rain across the Auckland Bridge, and it dumped on us continuously for the next 3 hours. Confirmed our reservations for the tour to the very tip of the North Island the next day, and took a nap.
Our 4x4 Izusu bus. We took on passengers when the company's other craft, a Mercedes, lost its AC.
Promptly at 7:30, the DuneRider rig rolled up to our motel and we launched into our tour - 500 km (about 300 miles) in 12 hours. Highlights promised in the brochure and driver:
- Walk in a kauri forest
- boogie-boarding down sanddunes
- Driving the 90 mile Beach
- Swimming and picnicking
- Seeing the Pacific and the Tasman Sea meet at Cape Reinga
- The best fish & chips ever
Driving on 90 mile beach requires a low tide, so we did that on the way north. But first, we "nicked off" to see Rainbow Falls, to give some space between us and the other companies' tour buses, and because it had rained so much, it seemed like a good idea. In true NZ form, someone offers rappelling down the falls on days when it isn't flooding. Then, the kauri forest, can't guess how many thousand year old trees, the last remnants of the native northern forest, the rest chopped down to build NZ.
I think the tree ferns, a leftover from when NZ split off the continent of Gondwanaland, are just as weird as the kauris. People grow them as yard trees.
90 mile beach isn't quite that long, but driving on the sand for over an hour at highway speeds ranks as one of the strangest things I have ever done. The driver said that the beach changes after every tide, and it was particularly rough after the rain the day before. He showed us tuatuas, a native mollusk, a partially scavenged marlin, the place where most people drown, and how to boogie board down a sand dune. Then it was time for lunch.
Lunch stop: last accessible beach northward, on the Pacific side. Camping option, if your rental car company will let you take a car on this road (ours won't).
Lunch allows me to make a generality about NZ: most things are better than they have to be. Our driver stopped in the morning at a roadside cafe so we could buy our lunches. He picked it, so I was happily surprised that my sandwich had a fair slab of chicken and that was brie, not mayonnaise, on the croissant. That was true for the latter R had that morning, and the dinner we had in Paihia the night before - the quality of the meal exceeds the need to serve a captive audience.
We came on this trip because Michael our host waxed so eloquently about the line on the water where the raging Tasman Sea meets the calmer Pacific Ocean. Maybe, but not that day, and if the Tasman hadn't been flat like a pancake, we wouldn't have seen it anyway. 30 knot wind blowing warm, dry fog. I can't explain how fog can be dry, but nothing I was wearing got wet was we walked out to the point.
Cape Reinga, the last landfall of Maori souls departing NZ to return to Hawaiiki, the ancestral homeland.
And yes, the fish & chips were excellent. We sent ourselves a postcard from the most northern postbox in the country, getting into the tourist mode. It will be fun to see the postmark when it comes.
All 90 feet of "on the Edge" at the wharf in Paihia
I got to choose for Sunday's activity, and R said I wanted to sail with On The Edge as soon as I saw it (he's right). Run by the same crowd that takes out retired America's Cup racers into the Auckland harbor, they are just getting started in the Bay of Islands.
R might someday get used to being dragged out onto the water in all sorts of weather.
The cat holds 60, but on this rainy end-of-season Sunday, there were only 6 of us. We sailed to the ever-popular Hole in the Rock, and then around the Bay, looking for dolphins and speed. Found both, two fish on the hand-line, and three scallops. Seafood on the BBQ while we sailed. Lunch in a quiet cove, where we argued about the dotterel on the shore, reaching no conclusion. We did agree on the Buller's and Sooty Shearwaters that cruised inches above the waves all around the boat as we sailed out into the open water.
The sailer boys hooted when we hit 15 knots with their Gennaker, which they explained as a cross between genoa and spinnaker. The speed was a rush, and the boat is capable of a lot more.
But we are out of time, this is our last weekend in NZ, so we drive the 3 hours back, in yet more rain. It barely sprinkled while we were on the water, on 90 mile beach, and in the kauri forest, so no complaining. Back to Auckland, where we again will make Michael and Effie's house look like their gypsy cousins arrived in the night. It would have been easy to wimp out, stick around the ranch, but we both wanted to see this territory before we leave. We can sleep on the plane. Or plan the next trip - we'll be back.
