Northland

In Awanui, a little village just north of Kaitaia and just south of the famous 90 Mile Beach, a man sits behind a computer in a local family's house, updating his blog before deciding to retire to the comfort of his caravan in the front yard. How did this come about? Read on..
Around 1500hr on Wednesday, I arrived in Auckland and bumped into someone strangely familiar.. Brian had finished his South Island section of his trip and flew into AKL that morning, hungover - could we expect anything else from a Scotsman? We met up for a coffee in the local Starbucks, plus had a brief catch-up session with Amandarin and Karin (they were passing through aswell), before shooting off north into that part of New Zealand known, not surprisingly, as Northland.
After a pleasant drive through the green rolling countryside (I've found pretty much all of the North Island and a large portion of the South consists of this type of landscape), we came to the end of our first day in a small town called Leigh on the east coast. Maybe it was the fact that the town seemed deserted, but we decided to instead head 11km north to a place the Lonely Planet book describes as a "secret paradise", Pakiri. And it was a beautiful beach so we decided to stay the night... on the beach... in our sleeping bags... brrrr... But great fun, we managed to get through a fair chunk of a New Woman's crossword puzzle (no, we didn't buy it!) before calling it a night and watching the stars, or rather the clouds obscuring the stars. I woke up a few times during the night, freezing, and managed to see a few satellites and shooting stars after the clouds had cleared, then the spectacular sunrise at about 15 of seven. And I now know why people use tents.. something else for the dew to form on.
We checked out NZ's only oil refinery - very informative - in Marsden the next day after a long and scenic drive along the coast, then onto Northland's "capital", Whangarei. There was not much to do there as such so we spent the last couple of sunlight hours visiting the Whangarei Falls and then driving out to the Whangarei Heads at the harbour entrance 35km away. It was actually quite a tiring day. Needless to say, the spa facilities in the Whangarei holiday park were fully utilised!
Friday held some swimming, football (soccer for the non-Europeans among us - must be all the English I'm hanging out with, I'm turning into one of them!) on the beach and other beach-related activities for us before finishing up in the Bay of Islands at the seaside town of Russell, NZ's oldest European settlement and former capital - equipped with NZ's oldest church, Christ Church (1847). Once described as "full of the refuse of society" by Charles Darwin, and later adopting the generous nickname of "Hell hole of the Pacific" due to the population largely comprising of fleeing convicts, whalers, prostitutes and drunk sailors, Russell is now a pretty and serene place which can (and does) justifiably call itself 'romantic'.
In the morning of Saturday we passed through Kawakawa, a seemingly normal town until you need to go to the loo.. The public toilets here, designed by Austrian-born artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, are decorated with ceramic mosaics, coloured bottles, wavy lines and are even equipped with grass and plants on the roof! Interesting. Then onto Paihia and Waitangi, across the bay from Russell. Waitangi is the historic place where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed (see my past post Taking over the world!). It was wonderful to see where it all happened, where the modern Aotearoa was born.
Kerikeri was the next stop for the night. Again, not much to do here.. apart from this time visiting NZ's oldest stone and wooden buildings. Ach! (Brian, that's for you) So many historic buildings, and yet none more than about 150 years old!
Speaking of Brian.. He was off the next day, back to Auckland to met a friend who flew in from Scotland, and so once again I became a lonely traveller. We said our goodbyes and I headed off further north, stopping along the way at a few scenic beaches, bays and coves - including the very secluded, very stunning Matauri Bay with its 17 Cavalli Islands scattered offshore - before eventually ending up in Mangonui (very different from Mt. Maunganui). It was in the fish and chip shop of this fishing port that I met a lovely local couple, Mike and Andrea, who after I chatted for a while with them offered me the bed in their disused caravan in the front yard of their Awanui house.
I spent a surprisingly comfortable night bayside in my car in Mangonui before driving up the jutting Karikari Peninsula in the morning for some more beautiful views over Matai Bay, with its twin coves, and Rangiputa beach. Awanui was the next destination and I again met Mike, Andrea and the rest of the family, this time at their home. They cleaned out and set up the caravan for me, and we even had dinner together. How nice! And how comfortable that caravan is!
And so we now have reached today's chapter.. I had a much needed lie in this morning then a little before midday I took Keita, Mike and Andrea's granddaughter, out for a drive up to the north-westernmost tip of NZ, Cape Reinga. On the way, we took a detour to the west coast to drive up 90 Mile Beach, literally. This beach is very popular in that you can drive along its entire length (which is technically more like 60 kilometres, but let's not get pedantic), although you might want to make sure the tide is way out before making this trip because cars have been known to get bogged and swallowed by the tides. Luckily, we arrived at low tide, but chose only to drive the first 20km (it loses its novelty a bit after that) before reverting back to the proper, impermeable road again.
Cape Reinga was great, there is a neat lighthouse there and it is also the exact place where the Tasman and Pacific Oceans meet, apparently sometimes causing 10m waves in stormy conditions. So now I can say I've been to the top and bottom of NZ! Cool. The weather was fantastic too so we could see the ocean stretching on for miles out north, but looking south we could see something a little out of place... Sand dunes... Hundreds of metres in height all across the top end of 90 Mile Beach. Now sand dunes are the last things you would expect to see in such a green and fertile country as this! So why not take advantage of the situation and whip out the old boogie board? And that's exactly what we did. Sliding down these sandy mountains was awesome fun, it was the climbing back up that was the killer.. I did eventually manage to persuade the apprehensive Keita to go for a bit of a slide on one of the smaller dunes too. After this short burst of energy expenditure, we visited a couple more beaches then headed back for a well deserved relax.

And here I am.

That concludes my story thus far. I hope everyone is well. Put a comment on here to let me know what you're all upto!

And Lee arrives back home very soon.. Awesome.. Can't wait to see and hear all about her amazing adventures in Ghana! And I'm sure mom can't either! ;)

Pictures coming soon.

Photos:
1. Sunrise at Pakiri
2. Football on the beach with Brian
3. Christ Church in Russell..
4. Felt a little weird going into the toilets with a camera, Kawakawa
5. In the meeting house at Waitangi - not sure what I was doing but I think Brian got a little scared
6. Onwards!!! In the 35m waka (canoe) at Waitangi
7. Big kids need their fun too! A circus in Paihia
8. Matauri bay, beautiful...
9. Some of my host family, Andrea and Keita, and me
10. My pad. Form an orderly queue ladies...
11. Cruising on 90 Mile Beach
12. Cape Reinga with the sand dunes in the background
13. Yeeehawww! Sandboarding!
14. Me in NZ, Spirits Bay
15. Now that's a letterbox if I ever saw one...