Cape Reinga, top of the north island

The idea of this last minute road trip was to see the northern most point of New Zealand. I wasn’t originally supposed to be going but a late night drinking session at the house soon persuaded me to join in! After being up at the house till the early hours, getting no more than 2 hours sleep, we packed all our things into the car at around 4.30 am and hit the road. We stopped off at the gas station for a well needed coffee and a greasy breakfast pie, turned the music up loud and headed North!

This being a spontaneous, last minute trip for me i was quite excited at the prospect of seeing the far North of the country as it’s the part i didn’t see any of the last time i visited. I was curious what the scenery would be like, and to see if i could have better luck with my fishing than i did on my first trip. The scenery on the way up was mostly coastal, rocky outcrops, with many beaches along the way. The weather hadn’t been kind to us, and was really cloudy, and fairly miserable all the way up. 

As we got into the Whangarei area, Pat’s mate Gus suggested a spot to go try out some fishing as he knew the area quite well. As written about in my previous post, this didn’t turn out to be the best idea of the day. 

After the days fishing had been average at best we decided to push on to Cape Reinga and hopefully catch the sunset. Once we eventually arrived at the car park, we took the long spiraling walk down towards the lighthouse where amazing views awaited us. The sun was trying to break through the dark grey skies, producing beautiful rays of light which created great colours around the lighthouse, and in the ocean. There was an eerie silence around the area which added to it’s beauty. You could see for miles, and in the distance is where you could witness the meeting of two seas. The Tasman Sea and the Pacific ocean meet to create unsettled waters of the coast, and is a really cool thing to see. After taking a look at the famous lighthouse we took a minute to sit on the grassy hillside and take in the landscape that surrounded us, and to appreciate that we were actually at the most northern tip of New Zealand, a place where a huge number of New Zealanders don’t ever visit.  

On the way back from Cape Reinga we visited some sand dunes that Gus had been talking about. It wouldn’t be long before the sun disappeared so we had to be quick. We parked the car and decided to go bare feet up the dunes. We crossed a small stream and then came to the first steep slope. We all struggled to make any progress at all as the sand kept falling away every step we took. Eventually we reached the top and safe to say we were all gassed, but this was only the start. 

From here we walked across an eerie looking sandy plain, with the sun now almost ready to drop below the horizon. It was starting to get cold so we picked up the pace and headed for the next dune! This one was even steeper and took every ounce of energy we had to make it to the top..but the view was worth it. A real mix of nature greeted you at the top, forest to the right, the sea right in front and the sand dunes themselves, which didn’t really fit in with the surrounding greenery. We were very lucky and arrived just in time for the sunset, so we sat and enjoyed the moment before making our way back down. 

Fishing done for the day, sightseeing done for the day, we were all starving and  had to drive around for ages, and i mean a few hours before we could find something that was open for food..or didn’t charge a fortune to feed you. As it was quite late, after 9pm i think, we were struggling for options being in such a remote part of the country and eventually had to settle for a McDonalds feed. Once we’d collected our food we stopped in a dark secluded car park by the lake and devoured our pile of junk. The time had passed by so fast that we were forced to spend the night in the car, which i for one wasn’t happy about AT ALL. There wasn’t any space in the car as it was with all our stuff crammed in there, and on top of that i also had no leg room. Was one of the most uncomfortable nights ‘Sleep’ i’d ever had, and i forced myself up and out of the car at around 5am, and took a stroll along the waters edge while i waited for the other two to regain consciousness. 

The waves of fury.

the tippity top.