Surfs up!!

Now everyone will try and tell you that there is nothing on the North Island and that you should head straight for the South Island, cos its far more beautiful and thats where all the action is.  Never ones to listen to the advice of others, we decided not to head south straight away and instead headed up the Northland hitting all the beaches on the west coast first.  So with our brand spankin set of wheels we headed for the black sand beach of Muriwai where the waves relentlessly pound the shores and as none of the beaches are patrolled if you dont use your noggin, then you could end up being swept out to sea or drowning (oo er missus!). 

The joys of camping

We christened our cooking stove that night by making a superbly healthy meal of fried bread and eggs - which we greedily ate ignoring the impending heart attack that awaited after such a monstrously greasy fry up.  Our super duper motor home which was basically a nissan estate equipped with mattress, cooking stove, cutlery and curtains wasn't so bad to sleep in - it was the question of trying to find a good safe spot to camp.  Rich folks may have been inclined to camp in proper campsites but not us - hell no.  A mixture of budget-itis and hardcore backpacker thriftiness meant that we would spend the next 6 weeks 'freedom camping', that is parking up, cooking, eating and camping where we felt like.  This is perfectly legal in NZ and apart from a few places (National parks and popular tourist towns like Taupo & Wanaka etc) you can do this anywhere.  Of course you need to have your common sense radar on and beach carparks are not often the best places to freedom camp as we realised that first night and had to move due to lots of dodgy nocturnal goings on, which left me a bit nervous wheras Stanley was oblivious and was Z-ing away in the land of the fairies...

Harmeet's happy cos she's just eaten dinner

Now all you brits will know that beaches tend to be a soggy affair back home, apart from when the sun comes out for 5 mins and then every man, woman and child, with dog, cat and pet stick insect in tow flock to the beach simultaneously.  So we didn't get the whole big deal with beaches - and then we got to NZ.  We fell in love with the empty golden stretches of sand, the pounding waves on the west coast (great for surfing and being knocked off your feet) and the gentle come hither waves on the east coast (great for swimming and then getting sunburnt!).  This was never more epitomised then at Baylys Beach near Dargaville, where we met the lovely Brian - a cheeky chappie who felt sorry for us poor sods and took us home so we could park and sleep in the safety of their front garden.  Well Brian invited us in for a cuppa and before you know it his lovely missus Debi was making us chocolate ice cream milkshakes and we were chatting away to their fab children.  We ended up staying for 3 days having fun in their fabulous company and they forced us (yes forced I tell you!) to take their quad bikes out on to the beach with a huge picnic filled with all sorts of unsaintly foodstuffs.

Hollywood sunset

Then disaster struck.  Stan's camera went kaputski after a meer 3 months of trigger happiness.  He was mortified.  Distraught.  Heartbroken.  Inconsolable.  He had become like the Borg and gotton used to seeing the world through the eye of a lens and now cameraless and naked he started having panic attacks.  In fact he was so worried that the index finger on his right hand would atrophy, that he resorted to picking those vacuos black hole nostrils of his, just in order to prevent muscle wastage on his prescious trigger finger - genius!  We sent the camera back to Blighty to be fixed, only to have it impounded by the muppets at customs!!  

Having been pampered, fattened up and with all the nits washed out of our hair and with only our naff camera on our camcorda, we continued up the west coast promising our new adoptive family that we would return on our way back down.  After much beach bumming we eventually got to Cape Reinga - the most Northernly point in NZ and after a few snaps, promptly headed to the Te Paki Stream at the end of the North Islands infamous 90 mile beach, where cars often get stuck in quick sand and get washed out to sea at high tide (hence we took the road!).  We were confronted with mile upon mile of sky high sand dunes that crazy peeps throw themselves down on sand boards.  After climbing these huge dunes we went for it - beginners go down sitting on the board, the nutcases go lying face forward & this is when you realise that screaming your lungs out is not a good move as sand is not so tasty... 

ooh

Coming back down the East Coast after spending a night at a Maori campsite in Shipwreck Bay complete with wild horses and pigs, we skimmed quickly past the touristy Bay of Islands, only stopping long enough to brain up on the Waitangi Treaty from the info in our guide books, after we realised that we couldn't afford to go to the museum.  Well the Waitangi Treaty is a bit of a point of contention and basically was a document signed by the head of all the Maori tribes in return for Queen Vic's protection. The contention arises in the fact that the english version reads slightly differently to the Maori version and implies quite clearly that the Maori people were relinquishing their sovereignty to their land in return for this protection from the Queen. The Maori version doesn't point this out quite so clearly... 

Splish splash

It was fascinating to read about and very interesting - from the few Maori's we spoke to it isn't a point of conflict, more something to reflect upon, which they do on Waitangi Day (an official Bank Holiday on the 6th Feb). We paid a return visit to Brian, Debi & Co. back at Baylys Beach where Brian showed us around his incredible kumara (sweet potato) farm and having annoyed them for a few days more, we finally headed down through the middle and in the direction of the eggy centre of the North Island, realising that we had fallen in love with the Northland and the amazing people we had met along the way... 

Stan sunbathing