There were only 2 other people on the Stray bus – Nils and Stephanie from Germany. Our bus driver was a lovely chap with a deaf daughter and a coeliac wife (what are the odds?!) He was very entertaining and knowledgeable about NZ and the Bay of Islands in particular, and the Maori legends. We stopped to look at the oldest kauri tree in the area (800 years old, though there are ones older than Christianity!)
and then again in Whangarei for coffee. We also made a stop in Kawakawa to look at the toilets. Yes, the toilets. I have to admit that these are indeed some gorgeous toilets – designed by some crazy Austrian dude, Friedrich Hundertwasser. They have old glass bottles for windows which gives a decidedly pretty light, and they just look wacky. Best place for a pee ever.
After Kawakawa it wasn't much further to Paihia, where we were staying in the Base hostel (I know, I never thought I'd set foot in another Base hostel either – this one isn't even in the Rough Guide! But Nils and Stephanie were staying there and I succumbed to peer pressure like a sheep. Baaaa.) Our dorm isn't that bad though, ensuite toilet and mini-kitchen. And there's only 3 of us.
We had about half an hour to unpack our stuff before it was time to dash out again on our dolphin tour! This was seriously awesome – the weather didn't look fantastic at first, but it brightened up when we were out on the water; I was actually warm! Even on the top deck of a boat! We struck out into the bay (via Russell, NZ's oldest town and one with a decidedly wicked reputation in its earlier days – sounds a bit like Tortuga, that place in Pirates of the Caribbean where Captain Jack falls foul of various prostitutes. Anyway Russell has gone from a salubrious drinking hole to a rather pretty if slightly dull place.) Once in open water, everyone commenced looking excitedly for dolphins – this took a while, and I was starting to think they'd never materialise, and was eating my grody day-old peanut butter and banana sandwich (see, I can economise on food when I have to....) when all of a sudden there they were!!
LOADS of them!!! just bobbing up and down in the water and gracefully waving their dorsal fins at us! We'd been hoping to swim with them (the 3 of us, no-one else on the boat was nutty enough to swim in the winter) but they had a couple of babies with them. If you swim with the babies they get all excited and play with you, and forget to feed from their mothers (which they normally do every few minutes, to stay warm – small surface area: volume ratio innit) and thus get really cold and maybe even die. Obviously I would rather watch a baby dolphin being cute and doing backflips than risking its cuddly little life to swim with me – so I was very happy watching them all! They played about with us for about half an hour, then when the boat took off, they chased the wake for a couple of minutes which was fantastic to watch!
We hared about the Bay for the afternoon, watching seagulls, sailing through a rock with a hole in it, and visiting some seals who were lying about on a rock sunning themselves (they very much reminded me of a gentleman of my acquaintance who enjoys his afternoon garden kips in the sunshine...) Took lots of photos and basked in the warmth, then disembarked at about 5pm. It was a beautiful and relaxing afternoon. Mmmm.
We were too tired to get up to much in the evening – went to the Base Pipi Patch nightly BBQ, where the nice man v. kindly gave me an extra steak because the sausage wasn't gluten-free :D and we got a free glass of wine. It turns out Stephanie doesn't like beer, despite being from Bavaria (!!!) so she kept me company drinking the wine! After watching a few hilarious attempts at karaoke, I decided it was bedtime and went off for a shower and another all too short kip.
We were up at 6am again getting ready for the Cape Reinga trip. To my horror, the kitchen wasn't open until 7am when reception opened (you have to go through reception to get to the kitchen. Damn fool layout if you ask me) and my carefully-planned bacon and egg sandwich went out of the window. I resorted to a banana and a hastily-toasted bit of bread (in the 10 mins I had between the ktichen opening and the bus leaving. Never was there such dedication to the noble breakfast. Unless you count David King's excellent handcarved potato smileys.)
Our bus driver for the day was an immensely likeable ginger Rob Brydon lookalike. He kept us supplied with a steady stream of banter and a running commentary which I didn't really hear, but it mattered not one jot because I was so busy looking at the gorgeous scenery. The weather was excellent and the surroundings jaw-droppingly beautiful. We stopped to look at some more kauri trees in Manginangina (I laughed at this name, I'm ashamed to admit) and they were beautiful but not as impressive as our 800 year old friend from the day before. We stopped in ?Taipi for coffee at a nice little bakery (with sadly no gluten-free provisions, forcing me to recourse to almonds and white chocolate with my coffee) and to grab our last provisions before embarking into “the wilderness” as Rob Brydon alarmingly called it.
Ninety Mile Beach is fantastic stretch of sand actually only 64 miles long, but I suppose “Sixty-four Mile Beach” doesn't have the same ring. It is quite fantastic to barrel along at 100km an hour along the water's edge – only the special tour buses can really do it safely, as ordinary cars tend to get stuck. It was seriously beautiful and we were all gawping out of the window for a good long while! We eventually stopped for photos...
and to turn cartwheels (ahem, only me) and generally run about on the beach, before setting off for the sand dunes 15 minutes further along. Here we did SANDBOARDING which is incredibly fun! (and cheaper than skiing). You climb up an angina-inducing hill, lie down on a bodyboard, get Rob Brydon – who happens to be a mad sandboarder and does running jumps downhill!!! - to give you a push, and away you go at terrifying speed down a 45 degree slope. You can kind of steer with your feet, and slow yourself down with your feet (though this gives you sandburn and severely exfoliates your toenail varnish). In general it's far more fun to have your feet up and your face in a rictus of fear – I think I was only going at 15 kph, if I heard correctly, but man it feels fast when your face is very close to a lot of sand and you feel you could easily end up with a mouthful of it.... I rapidly became addicted and ran up that hill about 4 or 5times to whizz down at speed, before it was time to depart again! Rob Brydon gave me a high five for my enthusiasm.
We stopped for lunch at a beautiful bay – unfortunately I didn't realise this was the last chance to swim and really wish I had – I had my bikini with me and the water wasn't prohibitively cold; in fact, positively welcoming (compare that to Brighton in January!!) Alas, I'll have to wait for the Coromandel/Devon/Singapore for my dip.
Our final stop was Cape Reinga which was INCREDIBLE. It was a beautiful walk from the carpark down to the cape itself, and you can see the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meeting in lots of little whirlpools!
I took as many photos as my dying camera battery permitted me to...
On the way back we stopped at a place selling ancient kauri wood products. Kauri trees are now protected so you can't chop them down and use their wood, but they keep finding really old kauri trees in swamps: waste not, want not... I was almost seduced into buying a kauri-wood chopping board (about $200), and had to walk away very quickly and distract myself with coffee and icecream (about $4, far more economical, though a less lasting souvenir).
The last stop on the way home was Mangonui, where everyone except me had fish and chips. I bore this with equanimity because of my yummy f&c in Auckland last week, and also because I was still full from the icecream....
We got home at about 6pm, bade an emotional farewell to Rob Brydon, and then something very strange took hold of me, walked me up to the Base reception and booked me to do a skydive from 16,000 feet tomorrow morning at 10am.
Yikes.
We'll see how that one goes.
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