Oi, the sea stole my sunglasses!
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2008
1
50
71
Trip End
Sep 03, 2009
Paihia,
North Island,
New Zealand
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Bay of Islands 1
!We were let off on an island somewhere, to be picked up in an hour or so. I decided to go for a swim. A few people tried, but decided that they didn't like the squidgy sand/soil stuff on the way in. They said the water didn't look very clean. I had gone to the effort of changing into my swimming costume, I was going to use it. The water really wasn't that bad. The view was certainly great. Unfortunately, forward planning would have been useful, as I now had soaking wet tangled hair and no way of sorting it out until I got back to the hostel. Not really a good look. On the way back, at the last minute, we managed to find some dolphins and watched as they swam around and under the boat, taking a good look at us. It was certainly a nice way to pass the afternoon.
The next day most of us had the Cape Regiana trip booked, an excursion to the most Northerly point of New Zealand. None of really knew what to expect. Our bus driver introduced himself. After another while of talking he announced' "Now, you're probably all thinking, oh no!, we've got one of those over-enthusiastic bus drivers..." Yep, we really had. It was still early in the morning, the pick up was at 7am. Our first stop was a little random. A walk through a little forrest, we were told we could hug the trees if we wanted a truly Maori experience
Bay of Islands 2
. The driver then decided to take us straight to the sand-boarding to wake us all up a bit. We were advised that swimming costumes would be the best attire for the occasion and everyone immediately got to work, trying to change their clothes on the moving bus whilst retaining at least a small portion of their modesty. Suncream was slapped everywhere, and I managed to get a nice arm-print on the window of the bus as the driver took a corner a bit too quickly catapulting us across the seats. Things got more interesting as the driver then started driving down a stream in the sand. He was enjoying it a little bit too much. Our bus was pretty new and obviously had a good engine, and steering, our driver was demonstrating this to us now. Thankfully he never pushed it too far though!
Having already walked up sand-dunes in the past, I wasn't overly
excited at the prospect of the trek up, but thankfully the dunes weren't as big as
some. They were certainly as steep however. Its funny, people always think that because I've done bungy jumps and skydives that I don't get scared about stuff like this. I was, in fact, bricking it! To the point where I had to watch the whole group do it twice over before I could be coaxed onto the board to do it myself
Bay of Islands 3
. I'm not particularly scared of heights, (apart from ladders!) but I am really scared of steep downhill slopes. But of course, once I was going I loved it and was straight back up their for a second go. Because we went there early, we got the dunes to ourselves which was a bonus.And so it was time for a break before lunch. We headed to a spot on the coast we could eat our sandwiches and go for a swim. We chuckled at a couple having full on showers outside the toilets, soap and all. Must be British. The sea was a little cold and rough, but we all ran in anyway. I forgot to take my sunglasses off, partly on purpose, I can't see anything without them on bright days. In fact the sea was very rough, the waves were huge. My friend was holding her sunglasses in her hand, and on resurfacing from the wave was left holding just one leg of them. Another wave hit and my sunglasses were gone. I can't say the driver didn't warn me. So RIP cheap Boots sunglasses, you have indeed served me well. The driver said that we couldn't borrow the body boards, in case we lost them, but then he seemed to change his mind as lots of people grabbed them. I had a go, I wasn't quite sure what you were actually meant to do. Seems to be harder than surfing to stay with the wave. It was of course much fun though. As we got out to rinse off and grab a bite to eat, we discovered there was no water left in the taps, leaving us to spend the rest of day salty
Bay of Islands 4
. Bloody tourists!We headed North to Cape Regiana. Here you can see clearly the line where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific Ocean. The view from the lighthouse is certainly impressive, but was somewhat spoilt by the hoards of tourists surrounding it. There wasn't much left to do, but drive back along 90 mile beach (which is actually 63 miles long, but the name had stuck by the time they worked this out, and sounds a lot less impressive anyway). After a few minutes driving down the beach, we came across a small bus, which had carved "Help!" and "SOS" into the sand. Amusing as it seems, I guess no-one would stop if they just waved! The bus managed to offload most of its passengers onto another bus, and we left a few of our passangers who had to get back with that bus as well. We ended up towing the bus all the way down the beach. It was certainly a bit of a novelty. We stopped briefly at a nice lookout, that our driver claimed tour parties weren't meant to stop at.
Feeling hungry, we were glad it was time to get to Mangonui for some apparently world famous fish and chips. We dropped the smaller bus off at a service station/wood carving shop and headed on to get our grub. It was certainly very tasty, but I somehow doubted that this was the best in the world. I mean, come on, England is the center for this surely!
