NZ: Bay of Islands

My first afternoon in New Zealand was on Friday, where I easily found my hostel, some lunch, a supermarket and generally wandered around downtown. I liked Auckland immediately, even on the ride into it from the airport, through the hilly Mt. Eden neighbourhood. It seems strikingly similar to San Francisco, in terms of the hills, the geographic location by the bay, the maritime weather (although not sure if it gets the same sort of fog), the California casual dress of the office workers, and the friendly vibe of the people. There is something about the compact size, sitting right on the water, having all the “big buildings” and yet being approachable. The neighbourhoods surrounding downtown are referred to as suburbs, but from what I have gathered, they are no farther out from downtown than, say, the Avenues or Inner Richmond or even the Marina neighbourhoods of San Francisco.

After getting settled, I enjoyed an hour of reading on the hostel rooftop patio and called it an early night to make it awake for my 7:45am pickup by Stray Travel for my first leg of my “Everywhere” pass. Saturday, Sunday and Monday I spent in the Northland, with Paihia in the Bay of Islands as our base. Paihia is a great little beachfront town, and the Bay of Islands has light blue water, and you guessed it, lots of islands. It is only a couple hours drive from Auckland to Paihia but we stopped several times on the way, including to hug a Kauri tree (a sacred New Zealand tree that lives for hundreds of years), and to snorkel and lay out at Goat Island. In the afternoon, when we arrived at Paihia it was 28 degrees outside (78 degrees) and I was able to lay out between 4 and 6pm, watching the final entries in the sandcastle competition finalise their structures.

I unfortunately came down with a short-lived, but excruciatingly painful, migraine on Saturday night and I didn’t know if I would be able to join the bus tour on Sunday to Cape Reinga as planned. Gratefully, I woke up in the middle of the night and the headache had disappeared so I was up at 6am after a 9 hour sleep, ready to join the Dune Rider bus up to Cape Reinga.

Sunday was quite a long day, covering a lot of ground. The highlights were driving along the majority 90 mile beach (it is actually closer to sixtyish miles though), sand dune riding, and visiting the Cape Reinga lighthouse, New Zealand’s northernmost tip.

90 mile beach was more impressive than I expected. It is just a beautiful long stretch of sand with several breaks of small to medium waves crashing into the coast. It is on the west coast of New Zealand, so due even further west is Australia (probably at about the Sydney latitude). Despite the strong breeze, it was warmer than I thought, and I imagined how fantastic it would be to run along it. Then I heard they actually have a marathon along the beach and back every year. (Any takers? Brett?! ;)


We stopped along the beach a few times for photo opportunities, including to check out a little blue penguin (so cute!). I forgot my camera that day, but a guy from my travel group was willing to give me his photos later once we confirmed we had the right technology to do it. He has a 10MP fantastic camera, so in the end, I got better pictures (and more of me) than I would have with my own camera. He also came on the day trip on Monday on the catamaran, so more pics for me. Sweet!

The sand dune riding was an experience, but I was more nervous than I had hoped or thought I would be. Basically, we walked to the top of a sand dune that was much higher than I had anticipated and then we pointed down the hill on a boogie board and away we went! Most of the climb up the sand dune was on a ridge where you could have fallen to the left or right and really rolled down the hill. Hm. That part definitely made me nervous, particularly with the wind blowing, and my vertical boogie board feeling like a sail that would pull me in an unwanted direction. Pointing down the dune was also pretty scary, but like the top of a waterslide, there is no turning back once you are up there. I used my feet most of the way to slow myself down, and I didn’t scream the entire time as I thought I might. Instead, I landed at the bottom with a lot of sand in my face and all over my body and thought, well, no need to go through that again, Not surprisingly, I was in the minority and most people took a few tries.

Cape Reinga was extremely picturesque and even quite warm. I acquired some beautiful pictures of the point, and I really enjoyed the walk to the lighthouse. There is an awesome sign pointing in all directions, telling you the number of kilometres to Sydney, Los Angeles, Vancouver, London, etc. There were a few more stops on the way back, but at the end of the 12 hour day, I was ready to be off the bus and back in Paihia.

On Monday, I took a catamaran ride out in the Bay of Islands for a day trip. The catamaran held 60 people, but we were only half full at 30, which was nice for having space to lay out on the trampoline-type area at the front of the boat. The weather was gorgeous, if a bit windy towards the end of the day. We sailed out amongst the islands for the first few hours, and then pulled into a bay to have a BBQ lunch on the boat and be ferried over to the nearby island for a hike. Some people kayaked and snorkelled; I took the island hike option. There are some funny looking pictures of me hiking in a bikini top, with linen trousers, and a parka wrapped around my waist. With the variable wind, it was hot/cold/hot/cold, so I was constantly wearing, or not wearing, several layers of clothing.






Now I am back in Auckland, where I will be for the next full week. I have a few day activities planned, including island hikes and wine tasting, so I am not worried about keeping myself busy. There are also a few events on, such as the Auckland Seafood Festival and the Annual Regatta. Plenty to do! (after I do my laundry and buy lots of groceries for the week, that is).