Running with the Ward's: ahipara

Showing posts with label ahipara. Show all posts

Our Great New Zealand Adventure with S&M - Part Duo

The following day we made our way to the west coast of New Zealand where we would spend the next two nights in Ahipara, a cute little town on 90 mile beach. Our cottage had an amazing view that made even doing the dishes a pleasure! We played some rugby (read American football with a rugby) on the beach and Justin even caught a few waves. We made pad thai for dinner and caught the All Blacks game.

Click here if you would like to see a little video of 3 Americans playing rugby on a beach in New Zealand.

View from our cottage in Ahipara

Our boys playing rugby on 90 mile beach

90 mile beach in HDR

Hood-rat SN

The next morning we set out early for our trip up to the far north tip of New Zealand at Cape Reinga. Our first stop was Rarawa Beach. This time we got to enjoy the amazing white sand without millions of bugs and we saw a brilliant rainbow that caused our men to frolic underneath it! We were chased away from the beach by a brief rain shower but made it to the car relatively dry.

Couple shot

Frolicking....

Next stop, sand boarding at the sand dunes. We had a blast sliding down the dunes like kids and Sarah declared the moment her favorite of the trip. We saw another beautiful rainbow at the dunes and stopped for various photo ops with sheep and cows along the drive back to the main road.

This little guy posed just for us

Car as a tripod group shot before we headed out for sandboarding

After a picnic lunch, we drove up to Cape Reinga where we had the place to ourselves! It was quite a contrast to the busy Easter weekend of our last visit. We got some great photos without other tourists getting in the way. The Cape is one of my favorite spots in New Zealand and I really enjoyed getting to share my second trip with two of my best friends!

Love this view!

The light house at Cape Reinga

The only other tourists in the area took our photo

Which way to Dallas?

Top of the North - Part 2

We got up early Easter Sunday morning to make the journey north to Cape Reinga. The morning was rainy so we decided to keep driving as long as it was raining and stop at the sites on the way home. Luckily, it cleared relatively quickly and we were able to stop at most sites on the drive north. First up, Rarawa beach which is known to have the whitest sand in New Zealand. The beach was gorgeous but also overrun with some sort of fly (it didn't bite us but you literally could not open your mouth without inhaling one). Somehow we managed to get all the way to the water before the flies attacked...but it didn't take us long to get back to our car!

Beautiful white sand that was super soft!

Next stop, surfing on the Te Paki sand dunes. I'm not going to lie....this was scary (especially considering the warnings I received from a colleague at work regarding broken arms)! We hiked up the sand dunes hauling our body boards. The whole way I was only thinking about how steep they were! We surfed down a few before Justin took a hard tumble which scared me and almost broke his glasses. It was so fun though we couldn't be deterred and surfed a few more on our hike back to the car. I don't have pictures from the top as we didn't take our camera but the dunes were super steep and tall so we really flew down them! Here is a video link of what we may have looked like.

Hard to tell scale from this but these dunes were huge!

Headed out for sand surfing

We finally made it to Cape Reinga around 1 pm. The Cape was beautiful and we got some beautiful blue skies while we were there. From the Cape, you can literally see where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. The water is rough in this area making the meeting of the opposite tides visible. Maroi legend says that the Cape is the spot where the souls of the dead entered the underworld.

From Cape Reinga

I think I was traveling alone this trip

Tidal race where the Tasman meets the Pacific

View of the lighthouse at Cape Reinga

After the Cape, we had a picnic and headed back to Ahipara. We took a refreshing swim/body board when we got back before dinner at the only local cafe. I actually swam without a wetsuit as the water is quite a bit warmer than the ocean near Auckland. It was another relatively early night since there is not much to do while camping once the sun goes down.

Completely different sunset tonight over the same spot

We took the long way home on Monday along the west coast of New Zealand in order to see the Kauri trees in Waipoua Forest. We visited Omapere and Opononi and ended up taking a car ferry as it was the only way to continue along the highway. We had lunch over looking the Hokianga Harbor. Shortly after lunch, we visited the giants of the Kauri forest, Tane Mahuta and the four sisters. Tane Mahuta meaning Lord of the Forest is said to be somewhere between 1,200 and 2,500 years old and is the largest living Kauri tree.

Ah, there he is....on the car ferry

Lindsay in front of Tane Mahuta for scale

The four sisters

Top of the North - Part 1

Justin and I visited the northernmost point in New Zealand over the 4 day Easter weekend. We headed out Friday morning bound for the KariKari peninsula. We didn't get out early enough and got caught in quite a bit of traffic. It took us forever to finally arrive at our Maitai Bay campsite. Unfortunately, it was not until we drove up to the check in kiosk that I remembered we needed $20 cash to pay for the site. So we turned around and drove back over the 2 km un-groomed gravel road and luckily found a convenience store that allowed me to get cash out since there was not an atm anywhere nearby. We settled into our campsite and spent the evening walking on the beach and reading once the sun went down.

Beach near Maitai Bay campsite

The next morning we rose early and I went for a scenic hike while Justin packed up (yes, I got the better end of that deal). We headed out after breakfast hoping to get to Ahipara in time to catch some waves. Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favor and there were absolutely no waves in Ahipara which is usually a great surf spot. So we scrapped our plans for surfing and hired a quad bike to ride along 90 mile beach. The ride turned out to be amazing and we explored about 30 km of 90 mile beach. 90 mile beach is actually a stretch of 88 km of beach that runs from Ahipara north to near Cape Reinga. We spent a great evening watching the sun set over the beach before retiring to our nearby campsite.