The Trek up to the Northland and back- January 27-29

On the morning of the 27th, Thomas, Sparrow and I said goodbye to Jackie as she was getting ready to leave for her "vacation from her vacation" to her brother Ryan's wedding in Mexico! The three of us girls were all going different directions, and after spending every day for the past month with them it felt pretty weird to be splitting up. 

That morning, the boys and I began our little journey up to the Northland in our little rental car - a Toyota Corolla we nicknamed Godzilla. We made our way up highway 1, going over the Auckland Harbour bridge. Our first major stop was at Whangarei Falls - apparently one of the most photographed waterfalls in New Zealand - or so the sign said. Definitely a stop worth making if you have some time on your way up the North Island.

After we got back onto the road, I passed out for a while and Sparrow took over as navigator. Next thing I know, I wake up and we're on some windy flipping road in the middle of no where along the east coast. We made a stop at Lang's Beach to stick our feet in the Pacific, and I got us back on track onto the main highway.

We ended our travels for the day in Paihia - had fish and chips for lunch and checked into a hostel. Paihia is in the Bay of Islands - there are over 144 islands in the bay. And of course, like everywhere also in New Zealand the scenery is incredible! Our day finished off with a fine NZ steak supper we cooked up at our hostel, and a few too many Tui's. 

The next morning we were up bright and early at 6:00 am because for some reason, we let Thomas convince us to go King fishing with him out in the bay. To tell you the truth, I'm sure glad we went! At 7 am we boarded our beauty of a boat, named the Major Tom II, met our skipper/fishing guide Jeff and one of the coolest dogs in the world: Poppy, a little Jack Russell terrier "fish hunter".

We headed out into the bay to catch some live baitfish - some yellowtail. Our baitfish lines had a few hooks on them, and we could catch multiple fish at one time. Thomas and Sparrow were catching up to 4 fish at a time, and I was helping to take the hooks off and throw them in the tank at the back to keep them alive. I'm not trying to brag (well, I am sort of, haha) but my first line I put out for baits had 4 fish on it, and my second had 6 fish. Yea, for my first time fishing you could call me a damn lucky angler! 

After catching a mess of yellow tail, we headed out to the bay to find a good spot. On our way out, Jeff saw some bottle nose dolphins and cruised on by so they would jump into our wake. Three dolphins cruised in our wake for about 10 minutes, only a couple short feet away from the boat. One of the most incredible animals I've ever seen, these dolphins were huge. They had to be close to 1000 pounds and around 7 or 8 feet long. Absolutely beautiful!  Anyways dolphins are great, but they are bad for fishing so we made our way away from them and anchored the boat above a reef, hoping to find some Kingies!

I'm not going to tell you what exactly we caught, because I fear the boys may have a different story than me for bragging purposes, but all in all the fishing wasn't great. We caught some snapper for a good feed, and the day involved too many bait fish getting stolen, too many sharks and barracudas and not enough King Fish. It was still an incredible experience, the ocean was calm, the sun was shining and we saw some beautiful boats go past us.  When we made it back to the harbor, got back into Godzilla and headed up north! Our destination: Cape Reigna.

The drive up north is through some pretty rough country, definitely would be a little bit difficult to farm some of the land up there, but as for scenery the rocky hills and hilly landscape is beautiful to look at. Our first stop along the way was past Kerikeri at Cooper's Beach for a swim in the ocean and a lie in the sand.  We continued up north, stopping at Rarawa Beach - a white silica beach on the east coast. Beautiful white, squeaky sand ran for miles, we dipped our legs into the ocean and ran back to Godzilla.

Back on the road, we reached the Ninety Mile Beach sand dunes around 7 pm, and for a bargain of $15 bucks got some sand boards and went sliding down some steep sand dunes. A face full of sand and a couple tumbles later we found our way back in the car and ended at Cape Reinga at sunset. My breath was taken away by the view walking down to the light house right on the edge of Cape. From the light house, you can see where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, and the waves crash against each other. This area is very special to Maori culture, as spirits who have passed on return to the homeland of Hawaikii from Cape Reinga.

I felt very humbled by the scenery, and at that moment so thankful to be there, and to be living the life I have.  Brandon, Thomas and I enjoyed a bottle of red wine and watched the sunset, then headed to our hostel to cook up our catch from the day, red snapper in dill and lemon, and enjoy a few beers. 

Our next day's adventures took us to Ninety Mile Beach on the west coast of the North Island, where Godzilla ventured out onto the sand and drove into the ocean for a bit... Pretty crazy little monster! The beach is glorious, and appears as if it goes on forever.  We headed down the island, stopping to see a bit of the Puketi Forest. Then back on the road again along the west coast to see Tane Mahuta - the largest Kauri tree in New Zealand. The tree is 51.5 meters tall and 13.5 meters in circumference, and it is estimated to be over 2000 years old. Very neat. 

Muriwai Beach was our last stop of the day, and we arrived to run into the ocean just at sunset. We checked out the gannet colony near the beach. Gannets are large white birds that dive into the ocean for fish, and they are incredible athletes. I've heard that they can dive up to 40 meters deep, however don't quote me on that, haha. Anyways, still very cool. 

We ended up back in Auckland, grabbed some late supper and ended our journey.  The next day was January 30th, Thomas left us for his flight home to British Columbia to get back to pulling tits. Sparrow and I wandered around downtown Auckland and checked out some stuff, hung out in the hostel and got organized for the next few weeks. On the 31st, Sparrow got onto the Kiwi Experience bus to finish his tour of New Zealand, and I was about to begin my next Kiwi adventure on my way to Matamata to work on Kauri Glen Holsteins for a couple weeks! Stay tuned for my next post!