MitchApril 23
We booked a tour out to Cape Reinga at the top of NZ to avoid the six hour return drive in the RV. We thought it would be a safer bet and more enjoyable for both of us to experience the scenic drive up to the Cape.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as planned. Victoria wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t fathom being on a bus all day. She told me I should still go, so I canceled her tour and met the bus a few minutes walk from where we were freedom camping in Mangonui. I got on the packed bus and away we went.
Tonya was our friendly bus driver and full of stories and information. She grew up in a large Māori family in the Bay of Islands.
We drove out of Mangonui, past the gorgeous beaches of Coopers Beach and Cable Bay and through the town where Kupe is believed to have made his first landfall in NZ: Taipa. The famous Polynesian explorer Kupe landed at various places in the north during his voyages of discovery before 1200 CE. This bridge built in the shape of a waka and the memorial at Taipā, on the southern shore of Doubtless Bay, commemorates his first landing in NZ.
From there, we continued our drive through the town of Kareponia. It adopted the name of “California” after the great fire of 1906 because so many Californians moved there to make the city their new home in NZ.
We turned on to the State Highway 1 that heads north to the top of NZ. The logging of the massive Kauri trees (pronounced “cody” in Māori) was the major industry up in this area until there were no trees left to log. That’s when the land was sold to dairy farmers. In the 1940s there were 37 farms around the area. Over the years the number shrunk to just one, but that finally closed its doors too. Today, avocado farmers use the land and climate to grow their crops.
Back in the day, the harbor town halfway up the peninsula, Houhora, was a destination for gum diggers, whalers and missionaries. It must have been interesting to wonder how they all got along. Gum diggers would “mine” the sap from the Kauri trees. It had lots of uses. It was chewed like gum, used as a fire starter, mixed with oil or fat for facial tattoos, bound in flax to act as a torch, used to make varnishes and also crafted into jewelry, keepsakes, and decorative items.
Along the journey, we passed many homes with a “hot box.” That’s a NZ mailbox made from an old microwave. People put these old burnt out microwaves on a stick and place them at the roadside as their mailboxes.
As we drove further towards the top, Tea Trees (or kanuka and manuka trees) lined the hills and mountains as far as the eye could see until we finally reached the tippy top of the country, Cape Reinga.
For Māori, Cape Reinga is the most spiritually significant place in New Zealand. An ancient 800-year-old pohutukawa tree and a lonely lighthouse mark this special place. It is here that after death, the Māori believe that all Māori spirits travel up the coast and over the wind-swept vista to the pohutukawa tree on the headland of Te Rerenga Wairua, or “leaping off place of the spirits,” to make their return to the land of Hawaiki— a mythical place that some believe is where Tahiti is today.
The Cape is the lookout point to the rest of the world. There were breath-taking vistas and sweeping seas. It’s where the Tasman Sea and South Pacific clash into each other creating massive whirlpools.
I walked down to the lighthouse and then climbed a nearby mountain to get a better panoramic view overlooking 90-mile beach and the meeting of the seas.
The lighthouse is completely solar power and emits a 1000 Watt light that can be seen some 30 miles away.
We wrapped up our visit at the Cape and headed back down to Houhora Heads, where we stopped for lunch at Mt Camel.
After lunch, our next stop was 90-mile beach. Tonya drove over a berm and onto the beach, where today, the sand highway runs 55 miles and is technically a State Highway.
The speed limit used to be 65 MPH but last year the government changed it to 40 MPH. In past years, the bus would drive the entire length of the beach up to the Cape, but monsoons last year made that unsafe without a 4×4 (our bus wasn’t all wheel drive), so they only drove us on a portion of the sand highway.
The beach is called 90-mile beach because in the days of horseback, it would take a full day to ride 30 miles. Yes, NZ once used miles until it was changed in 1967. Since it took Māori three days to ride the entire length of the beach, they named it 90-mile beach not knowing it was much shorter.
Wild horses still roam on the beach along with wild turkeys and pheasants. We saw a few of each along the way.
Finally, we arrived back to Mangonui at 4:30pm, 7 hours later! It’s a good thing I got the pickup from Mangonui as the others on the tour still had another hour and a half bus ride back to Paihia.
The bus driver dropped me right at the RV and thankfully, Victoria was feeling much better, so we went to Thai Mangonui for a delicious dinner.
