The North of the North Island

Arriving in Auckland at 12:30 AM local time last Friday, Jordache and I spent a few hours right away looking for a vehicle. Samsung had a free internet station at the terminal, so we made good use of that, looking up vehicles online and jotting down numbers to call later in the day. After catching some shut-eye in the airport, falling asleep around two in a nearly empty airport and then waking up around eight surrounded by arriving travelers, we caught a cab into Auckland into our hostel. Ideally we would have liked to have found a vehicle on Friday and then hit the road on Saturday, yet everyone we phoned had either already sold their vehicle or was unavailable. We even took the bus out to the suburbs to look at a potential vehicle, but after we arrived in a shady part of town and looked at the vehicle, we decided it wouldn't be a good fit. The seller seemed a little bit shady actually, as he was under house arrest and had about half-a-dozen vehicles for sale. The vehicle we had come to see was across the street from his apartment, and he yelled at us from his front yard, his ankle bracelet blinking, wondering if it was what we were looking for. We told him it wasn't - and didn't stick around to chat.

After looking at a number of other vehicles we finally bought a 1988 Nissan Bongo van. It has less than 100,000 kms on it and its five-transmission has been a big help in navigating the circuitous highways. We got it for $1800 CDN, and after spending Monday morning putting a raised bed into the back, we think we might be able to sell it to some backpackers when we leave for a bit of a profit.

We left Auckland on Sunday, heading north up the east coast with the plan being to get to Cape Reinga, the northern tip of the North Island, that night. A good rule of thumb in Canada is 100 kms = 1 hr, but in New Zealand we quickly learned that it is more like 75 kms = 1 hr, especially when you are driving a van like ours, so we parked outside a gas station along the way, planning on getting up early, getting some fuel and hitting the road early. We were visited by a cop only fifteen minutes after pulling in, and he told us he had had some reports of "some guys who looked kind of sus." After chatting with us for bit, he realized we weren't that suspicious after all and headed off, telling us to enjoy our trip.

The next day the plan was to make a bed for the back of the van, and we pulled up to a hardware store where we got the lumber we needed cut to our specifications and then began tacking it together the best we could with a hammer and nails. A guy leaving the store offered us the use of his surfboard workshop across the road, so we made our way over there. Power tools made life much easier and the bed much more likely to last the trip, and after a few hours there we were on our way.

Sunset found us taking in the view at Cape Reinga, looking north as the Tasman and the Pacific met in front of us. Because of the difference in the tides you can see where the two seas meet as waves crash into one another in a northerly line, and the place has a spiritual significance for the Maori people. According to legend, it is in this place that souls step down into the ocean and begin their journey to the afterlife. The parking lot on the Cape served as our campsite, and in the morning we turned south and backtracked to the Te Paki Sand Dunes.

There was a sandboard rental at the dunes, but we had rented sandboards from a gas station and so headed straight out onto the sand. After we each had a ride down one of the smaller dunes at a painfully slow speed, we realized that we had been duped. The "sandboards" from the gas station were actually boogie boards, obviously designed for water, not sand. We ended up getting some legitimate sandboards from the woman renting the sandboards at the dunes, and this time we flew down the slope. There was a bit of a rise at the bottom of the dune we were sliding down, and after a few rides Jordache headed down, trying to steer himself around the rise and so get a longer ride. Steering sandboards is pretty much impossible, and Jordache found himself heading straight for the rise. He rocketed off, landing twelve paces down the sand, sticking the landing. The the next two times he attempted it as I filmed it, but the landing just wasn't as smooth as the first time. When you see the video you will know what I mean. And he had just about recovered from his cliff dive too. The difficulty of the hike up the dunes was the deciding factor in how many rides we had, as tramping up the steep incline was exhausting, and after about six rides apiece we hit the road.

Heading south, we decided not to take the same highway and instead took a dirt road down to 90 Mile Beach. The dirt road cut through a farmer's field and we made the requested one dollar donation in the coffee can, opening and then closing the gate after ourselves. The beach is actually a registered highway, and we cruised south, only meeting a handful of vehicles on the sand. If we had to navigate the same quality of track off the beach as we did on our rear-wheel drive van would not have made it, but at the southern end of the beach we were relieved to find an actual ramp off the sand.

That night we got into Pahi, a surfing beach that had been recommended to us, and in the morning we headed out into the waves. The few people we saw in the water were wearing wetsuits, and we quickly discovered why. The water is cold. Coming from the warm water of Australia, we had been spoiled, and we shivered through an hour of waves. We have yet to get into the water again, and it is looking like we will either buy wetsuits or sell the surfboards. Pahi is on the west coast, known for its surf and its black sand beaches, and after exiting the water we headed east coast, typified by white sand and more swimmer-friendly waters. We hiked down to Cathedral Cove and parked our vehicle on the beach at Hot Water Beach. This town is so named because of the hot springs that bubble up along the coast, and around nine we headed down the beach in the dark to go dig ourselves a natural hot tub.

The hot springs can be accessed two hours on either side of high tide, and the tide was coming back in as we found the spot. I had visions of digging a deep hole and then relaxing in water of uniform temperature. In reality, a hole eight inches deep is as much of a depression as can easily be made in the sand, and the hot water comes out of the ground in waves, alternating between boiling hot and luke-warm. We hung out with a German couple we had met, and after we were swamped by a wave for the fifth time which obliterated the wall of our pool, we decided that we would call it a night. Still, for a few brief minutes outside of the labour to dig away the sand and jumping up to avoid scalding, it was quite the experience to lay back in the shallow water and look up at the crystal-clear sky.

Today we made the drive from Hot Water Beach to Raglan, where the plan is stay tonight and brave the water and do some surfing tomorrow. The trip took a bit longer than it would have if we hadn't had vehicle problems, but that was taken care much more quickly than we expected. Our muffler had come apart yesterday, and while the noise generated made us sound rather impressive on the road, it induced headaches inside the cab. We drove the van into a shop along the highway today, and the mechanic welded it up and had us on our way in thirty minutes. Talk about service!