We did a day trip up to the very north of the north island to Cape Reinga today with a company called Dune Rider 4X4. They have these cool 4X4 seater buses with small groups on the tour guaranteed. The pick up was 7.30am. A ford transit van arrived at the hostel and the driver had some stupid excuse that the actual 4X4 bus was missing a part and not fit for the road. We had no choice but to do the tour in the transit van. They obviously overbooked for Easter d Weekend because two other 4X4 buses left from Paihia the same day. The tour itself was very good, first was a visit to a Kauri forest, then up to Cape Reinga to see the meeting of the waters. The Tasman sea and the Pacific sea meet on a bank, the waves come from different directions and cause this cool effect in the sea and you can hear this loud crashing sound. Next was a drive down a quick sand river to this enormous sand dune for some sand boarding. Yes I did my first ever extreme sport and got dumped in the sand. I came off the board pretty badly because I wouldn’t brake and ended up rolling about 6-7 times and then eating sand. I hurt my shin and my foot but I was ok. We drove down 90 mile beach then and as we were looking for shell fish this freak wave came in and got the van and resulted in us getting stuck in the sand. The van had to be towed out by a 4X4 bus. hehehehe (pictures are hilarious). On the way back we went to Mangonui for the nicest fish and chips I have ever had. Bluenose fish freshly caught that day. When we got back to Paihia for beers we discovered that all the bars were closed. They close on Easter Sunday. No watching the gp for me, thankfully I had beer in the hostel 
Archive for March 22nd, 2008
Only Murpho will get the title to this post. I may tell you if you get me drunk :). We got up at 9ish and went to the beach for a swim. Next it was back to the hostel to get breakfast. Next was an ultimate act of stupidity. We decided to see Haruru falls. The lonely planet says you can do a forest walk. We went to do the forest walk but the path was closed due to it being unsafe (land sliding). The book also mentions access by road so we decided to walk this way. It’s a main road with no path so it was quite dangerous walking for 3km. The falls were very impressive but neither of us fancied the walk back the main road. Murpho spotted another way back but it was almost twice the distance of the way there. The stupidity was we brought no drinks whatsoever. We walked almost 10km in total with no liquid on a very hot day. I was so thirsty when I got back to the hostel I almost drank 2 litres of water straight.