Blogs from Northland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 9

Our hitch hiking experience to Cape Reinga was only possible thanks to a local school bus driver and his wife, who picked up around 10 people in a bus and drove us 40km towards Cape Reinga. They even picked up a kid with a rat tail. -sean... read more

I had so much fun sandboarding in Te Paki! It is hard work and you have to scale the huge sand dunes in order to sandboard down and scaling sand dunes is exhausting as each step you take, your foot just sinks deep into the soft sand. It takes a long time to get to the top, more like 2 steps forward, 1 step backward sort of cx... read more

Lie Wei and I finished work at around 3-ish pm on Monday and since weather forecast was going to be good on Tuesday, we (including her sis and Jie Min) decided to head to Cape Reinga, which is almost the most northen-most point in the North Island. The actual most northen point is actually Surville Cliff but Cape Reinga is probably more famous because it is the most scenic. It is about 280+ km north of Whangarei. Cape Reinga is a very sacred place to the Maori people. It is believed that the spirits of the dead travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800 year old Pohutukawa tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki-a-nui, ... read more

Die Fahrt zum Cap Reinga führte uns heute zum äußersten Zipfel im Norden Neuseelands. Nach einer alten Legende der Maoris, sollen die Seelen der Verstorbenen entlang des Ninety Mile Beachs bis zum Cap Reinga wandern. Dort wartet ein Geist auf die Seelen und überführt diese in das sagenumwobene Hawaiki. An diesem Cap treffen die türkise Tasman Sea und der blaue Pazifik aufeinander. Dies führte zu tollen Farbspielen, die wir vom Leuchtturm aus betrachten konnten. Auf einer kleinen Wanderung zum Strand der Tasman Sea, konnten wir noch die gewaltigen Wellen beobachten und noch etwas verweilen. Der Rückweg führte uns noch zu den Sanddünen von Te Paki. Die Sanddünen können hier eine Höhe von bis zu 150m Meter erreichen. Zu Fuß machten wir uns auf den Weg und erklommen die Ersten kleinen Dünen. Vor uns türmten sich nun ... read more

I would like to tell you that we are sitting in Vava’u soaking in the sun and enjoying island life, but ….. I am sitting, writing this in the Laundromat in the Opua marina while the last load of laundry is washed and dried ready for our departure first thing tomorrow morning, Saturday 16 July 2011. The weather has finally decided to clear enough for us to go and this time, I am sure we will be departing – it feels different somehow, and we can’t wait to get away. Since my last entry a few things of import have happened. Firstly, as it became evident that we would not be able to get away as planned, our crewman Scott had to make the hard decision to leave the boat. He only had a limited time ... read more