Blogs from Ninety Mile Beach, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 3

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Unfortunately we didn’t get to swim with dolphins. When we got to Phiaia there were two companies offering the tour. We decided to go to the tourist information office and ask them for their opinion. As they are not allowed recommend any one company she gave us the pro’s of both and left out the con’s. She told us that they had a 50% chance of swimming with dolphins. A chance anyone would take. We left there and said we would have lunch and decide which company to use. As we had already seen dolphins in Doubtful Sound we didn’t want to spend the money on just seeing them again. We passed the office of one of the companies and asked them when they last swam with dolphins. It was over a month ago. 50% chance ... read more
45,000 year old tree
Signposts
Michelle

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach March 17th 2009

My journey to the north started as soon as I recieved word of two things. Number one, that my father had finally decided to jump on a plane and see his youngest son, and would be landing in Auckland on March 18th. Secondly, I got a facebook message from Kyla that read "Geoff- I'm living in Ahipara for the next couple weeks, spending my days lying in hammocks and pretending to surf, and my nights racing cars with policemen. You have to come up here. It's paradise. Do you have a job in Christchurch yet/is your dad coming out?" Key words in there for me were 'surf', and 'hammocks' and 'paradise'. I wasn't too sure about the policemen bit, but regardless I was on a public bus within the hour headed towards a little town (suburb) ... read more
Picton
90 Mile Beach
Nate and Malcolm Quiz

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach January 8th 2009

Lots to talk about! After my previous entry, that evening we bought a few cold ones and sat on the beach while the sunset. The sun set behind a bloody mountain behind us, so we couldn't see the sun set itself, but we could see the beautiful colours and shadows being cast in the sky and then the stars came out. I have never seen so many stars, and Orion, looked like a tangible human! We headed back to the hostel, with a few beers left, planning to keep them for tomorrow but we bumped into one of our room-mates, Nick. Nick was the first person so far to hold a decent conversation with on meeting, so we figured, three beers, three guys. We sat there drinking beer and trading stories. Turns out he's thirty-two and ... read more
Mr Dolphin
A brace of Dolhpins
Leaping Dolphin

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach January 8th 2009

The bus rolled out of Paihia at 7:15 and we were on our way! Heading north to the most northerly point in NZ - Cape Reigna, took us about 4 and a half hours including stoppage time, so was a bit of a mission to be fair but well worth it! The trip came after a good couple of days! We were able to completely detox after the rush around of China and Oz and all that travelling while still feeling like we were on the road. Our hostel was a really nice place as well, as comfy as it looked, and we spent the first evening on the beach having a couple of beers and star gazing which was cool. On the way back we met Nick and James, two of our roomies, and stayed ... read more
Dolphins!
Rob + 90 miles of sand
Capt. AJ Sparrow

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach December 5th 2008

I finally got some surfing in!! It was wonderful. I signed up with New Zealand Surf and Snow Tours for a 5 day surf tour on the northern part of the north island. The company owned a house on the base of Ninety Mile Beach where we only had a 10 minute drive to Shipwreck Bay, a really nice left point break where the waves are just perfect depending on the swell size. The 12 of us spent the first two days surfing perfect waves at shipwreck bay. The other three days the swell dropped a bit so we drove in search of waves. One day we went to the east coast to a beautiful white sand beach where dolphins showed up half way through our session. Three dolphins surfed a wave about 6 feet away ... read more
Sunset from our beach house
Surfing the East Coast
The Surf Crew

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach November 13th 2008

Sunday 21st September (half an island done!) We set the alarm on Pili’s phone for 6:00am to catch and film the sunrise, WOW it was really worth facing the cold of the morning. This was Pili’s first full sunrise, she’ll never forget it either, stood on the very northern point of New Zealand and capturing it all on film, it was a great moment to share together. Invigorated by the magic we had just witnessed we set out for an hours walk along the headland to get a better view of the beaches from above, all before breakfast. We worked up quite a sweat, not realising quite how steep some of the path was. When we returned to the van I made us breakfast and we met our neighbours in the adjacent van. Matt and Mel ... read more
View South from Cape Reinga
Our New Friends Matt & Mell @ Te Paki Sand Dunes
Pili climbing Sand Dunes

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach November 8th 2008

Well like I said yesterday. Today we were at 90 mile beach. We got up at 7:30 so we didn't have to pay for the camping spot. Nobody was there lastnight and again this AM when we left so o well. We went for a drive again down the beach. This time we made it about 60 km before we had to turn around. We stopped for breakfast and took some pictures. We also had to check our pants because when we were rippin down the beach at 140 km we hit some water and did a full 360 that look about 200-300 meters. Good thing it was just sand and nobody on the beach. hahaha. We were hoping to make it all the way up to Cape Reinga on the beach but the tide was ... read more
View out my window at the backpackers
Cape Reinga
tree hangin on for dear life at the Cape

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach October 17th 2008

Day 566 (15.10.08) Opting for a tour rather than driving up ourselves as no rental cars are allowed to drive on the beach, we were picked up by our guide Senny to learn that there would only be four of us in the bus today, superb. After a quick stop in Kaitaia to pick up the post, our trip was also doubling as the local postie as well, we were headed north on our way to the most northerly tip of New Zealand. Senny gave us a traditional Maori welcome and an introduction to the day before our first scheduled stop at the Kauri Kingdom. Albeit primarily a shop selling furniture whittled out of ancient swamp Kauri wood, it was amazing to see the scale of it all, the centrepiece of which was a spiral staircase ... read more
90 mile beach
Sandboarding
Sandboarding

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach October 8th 2008

By 10am we were on our way, pleased to get our of the dodgy campsite. We drove up the peninsula to the place where there was supposed to be amazing ice cream. It turned out to be a small shop selling a brand name ice cream so it wasn’t anything special, but we had one anyway. We tried the NZ favourite - hokey pokey - which was vanilla ice cream with honeycomb pieces. It was delicious. Next we drove to a beach called Rarawa. It was lovely soft, white sand and it wasn’t raining for once, so we were able to walk on it for a few minutes before it got too cold to carry on. There was a brave surfer in the water - even in a wetsuit I’m not sure I could have handled ... read more
Rarawa beach
The silica sand was so soft - just like the kind you find in an egg timer
Ninety mile beach

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Ninety Mile Beach October 7th 2008

The crusies had all said to give them a call first thing to see whether anything had changed, but at 7.30am we looked out of the window and saw wind and rain and decided not to bother, so had a lay in instead which was a real treat. After a hot breakfast we ventured out in the rain to drive along the coast to Doubtless Bay where there were lots of pretty coves and beaches we wanted to explore. It absolutely poured down, so walking on beaches wasn’t as fun as we’d expected, in fact mostly we just stopped and looked at them through the window. We had a look at Cable Bay, which was a lovely pink sand, Tokerau Bay, which was long and sweeping, Kaikari Beach, which was reached via a long unsealed road, ... read more
Tokerau Beach at Doubtless Bay
Karikari Beach
Karikari Beach




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