Way up North
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2006
1
38
159
Trip End
May 27, 2008
Cape Reinga, New Zealand
Sunday, November 19, 2006
We then all went sandboarding (just managed in between the showers) which was really cool but quite scary as you went pretty fast and it was hard to slow down. Spike said the wet sand made it the best day for him and he managed to slide all the way over the stream at the bottom which was a record for him! I would have liked to have spent longer there but we left and drove along 90 mile beach (only 64 miles long though but Spike said they named it 90 mile as the Aussie's had an 80 mile beach, but how true that is.......). We stopped on the beach and Spike dug out some shellfish of some kind, a bit like cockles, but they didn't taste of anything othwer than salty water to me.
We were then taken to the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, a place where they sell stupidly expensive stuff as it's made from Kauri wood, which you are not allowed to chop down, you can only use wood from those that have fallen. It's nice wood but most of the stuff was so tacky and who would pay 36000 NZ $ for a guitar! The cool thing there was a staircase carved inside a hollowed out tree that you walk up to get upstairs.
We were then taken to New Zealand's best fish and chip shop in Manganui as they own a boat and catch and cook it fresh. It cost almost 10 NZ $ and rhe chips were crappy and the fish was nothing special, wasn't cod, not sure what it was, plus they charge you for Tommy K! I'm no f 'n' c conissoir but I know they weren't anything special.
Back at the hostel I got chatting to a woman from the UK, Anne, travelling on her own for 6 weeks (left her 18 year old son at home!) and I went to the Beach house bar with her and Maud and we saw more cool live guitar and singing. As I was leaving I ran into the Danish guy Anders who I'd met on the tour of Auckland and we decided to go for a walk up to the Haruru waterfall this morning.
The walk to the waterfall was quite nice and we saw some more Tui birds, although these didn't talk. The bus wasn't leaving for Auckland until 4pm so we had the day to kill. Back at the hostel I got gelato with Maud and we played frisbee with Anders in the park, then we sat on the beach and I had my fisrt taste on Suduku. Quite hard to get into and took me ages to complete but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
Drove back to Auckland and had yet more nice food back at Rae and Collin's apartment and the dog seemed to have missed me during my 2 nights away! Tomorrow I leave this life of luxuary to start my backpacker bus pass with the company 'Stray', who claim to be for active like minded people......
