Driving to Whitianga

This day was pretty uneventful since we needed to get the whole way from Paihia to Whitianga. We got up fairly early, ate hostel breakfast, and got in our coach. Most of the day was spent driving, although we made a few stops along the way. We stopped in Thames to go shopping, and stopped in Wellsford to grab some food. We finally arrived a little before dinner time in Whitianga and got settled into our new hostel. This hostel was practically on the beach and had a great view and fantastic accommodations. The girls had a whole floor to ourselves with a kitchen and lounge area, which was really nice. We got settled and walked into town for dinner. After dinner, we all hung out in the lounge in our hostel until bedtime. It was really nice to finally be able to relax and get to know everyone better since we had been traveling so much.

90 Mile Beach, Dune Boarding, and Cape Rienga

This morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hostel. We had to get up pretty early because we had a full day planned. Since we were going to be driving on a beach on a pre-planned tour, we had a different coach than usual and Stu wasn't driving us. We drove up the west coast of the northernmost tip of the north island along a beach called 90 mile beach. (For the record, they call it 90 mile beach, but really it is 90 km.. naming FAIL). It was pretty sweet because we had a special coach that actually could drive on the sand so we drove about 40ish km actually on the beach.

A sea arch in the distance on 90 mile beach

Freshwater running across the sand towards the ocean creating antidune formations

Once we drove awhile up the beach, we turned inland and drove through a stream bed through huge dunes. These dunes had to be the biggest I had ever seen in my life! Our driver then tells us we are pulling over to go dune boarding. I remembered that Mike had done that on his trip to Australia and New Zealand, so I knew I could not pass this opportunity up.

The view of the stream bed we drove through to get to the dune boarding site

The climb up the dune was insane. It was a very steep climb and especially trying to climb up while the sand kept shifting under my feet made it even more difficult. When I finally got to the top, I was terrified by the view. Since I am really afraid of heights, I wasn't sure if I would be able to go through with it.

The steep climb up the dune

After I watched a few people go down, I knew it was now or never. Plus, how else would I get down? I finally got up the nerve and headed down the side of the dune. It was like a faster, face-first, version of sledding, and it was awesome! Despite my reservations at first, I got right up and did it again.

That's me!

The whole group after our dune boarding experience

Unfortunately, more tours showed up at this spot, so we had to get moving. We headed to Taputaputa beach for lunch. We had the chance to go swimming again, so of course a bunch of us went in. We found a bunch of small jelly-like blobs floating around in the ocean with us that we assumed to be fish eggs. However, Doug told us that they were probably larvaceans, a small organism that forms jelly sacks around itself to stay afloat. After lunch and a quick dip, we headed north to Cape Rienga, the northernmost part of New Zealand.

The Cape Reinga lighthouse

The Maori have a legend about Cape Reinga, since it is the northernmost part of the country. They believe that when a person dies, their soul travels the whole way up 90 mile beach, then goes to Cape Reinga. Once a soul reaches Cape Reinga, it can depart and go up to the sky. It is such a cool place because it is the part of the island where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet, so there are unique currents which also play into the Maori belief that this is where souls go to depart Earth.

The view walking to Cape Rienga

A sign at the northern most part of New Zealand

It was a long walk to get to the lighthouse and back, so we were pretty tired by the time we got back on the bus. I slept most of the ride back to Paihia, and was so thankful that dinner was waiting for us at the hostel. After we ate, Art took out the ROV and we got to try it out in the pool. I got to drive it for awhile, then passed it on to some others to try operating it. It was then time to shower and go out to spend Trevor's $100 bar tab. It ended up that our professors and Stu were out too so we had a good time bonding and hanging out with them. We ended up staying out way too late, but the next day's plan was driving all day so we could sleep on the bus.

Bay of Islands Tour and Waitangi Treaty Grounds

This morning we woke up pretty early at the marae. Since we had stayed up late the night before, breakfast was running a little late so we threw around a rugby ball on the lawn until breakfast. Stu, our coach driver taught us how to correctly throw the ball to get the right kind of spin on it. It was harder than I thought- I was so temped to throw it like a football! We then had a wonderful breakfast, and the Maori performed a goodbye ceremony to us before we got on the road again.

We arrived in the town of Paihia, where we boarded a cruise ship for a tour of the Bay of Islands. The tour was about 4 hours long and we spent it going past a bunch of gorgeous islands and learning about each of them. Most of them had little towns with boats offshore, and each island had a unique story of its history.

The typical view of the islands on our cruise- be jealous, the whole country looks like this!

The furthest island we went to was home to the famous "hole in the rock". The hole was created by a fault in the rock that was widened into a cave by the wave activity, and eventually worked the whole way through the island to create a hole. Apparently, the hole keeps getting bigger because when storms create huge waves, the water gets funneled through the hole and erodes it even more. There is another cave forming the same way on this island that will soon break through to be another hole.

The hole in the rock; you can see the other cave that to the left of the hole

Me on top of the boat in front of the hole in the rock

The conditions were stable enough for us to drive through the hole, which was pretty awesome. Apparently if you get dripped on, it's good luck... and I got dripped on! We went back through the hole and continued on the tour to Cable Island. Here, we stopped and got off the boat for about an hour and had our first opportunity to swim on the trip. It was a little cold, but I went in anyway. I had to get a swim in the first chance I got! The boat came back and we finished out the cruise by heading back to Paihia.

We boarded our tour bus and headed to Waitangi, and the Waitangi treaty grounds. This is where the treaty between the Maori and the British was signed. We toured the grounds and saw the largest Maori canoe ever built, and a mast that contained the current NZ flag, the british flag, and the old NZ lag before the treaty was signed.

Largest Maori canoe

The flags

We left and headed back to Paihia again to our hostel to check in and eat dinner. This hostel was pretty cool and was almost like a little resort hotel. There was a pool and a hot tub and a little outdoor area to hang out, which was a nice place to eat and have lecture. That night we explored Paihia and went to a bar called the Salty. It was karaoke night there so we tried to see how many people from our group we could convince to do it, since the winner got a $100 bar tab. A few people sang, but Trevor did this amazing rendition of "Escape" by Enrique Iglesias... and he won!

Trevor interpretive dancing while singing karaoke

It was such an eventful night that we came back to the hostel and crashed to get ready for our big day tomorrow.

Tane Mahuta and the Motuti Marae

This morning we got up, packed our bags back on the coach bus, and got back on the road. We went to a Kauri forest to see a huge Kauri tree that is very important to the Moari, the first inhabitants of New Zealand. The Kauri trees are very important to New Zealand and are now protected. The particular tree that we went to see was named Tane Mahuta. A Maori tour guide led us to Tane Mahuta while telling us the story of what the Maori people believed about this tree. Apparently, the earth and they sky were husband and wife and they kept having children, the plants and trees and animals. There were so many children that no one could breathe, so Tane Mahuta grew so large that he could put his feet on the earth and arms to the sky to separate the two and create space for everything to live. Our tour guide told us more about how Kauri trees pollinate and grow, and he performed a sacred song and prayer to Tane Mahuta.

Me in front of Tane Mahuta

After that, we headed to another ferry to get across an estuary to continue north. We had about 45 minutes before we had to board the ferry so Emily, Rina, and I sat by the water and relaxed. Turns out that the ferry left early and the three of us were left behind! Fortunately, the ferry was running faster than the schedule so it came right back to get us and we weren’t at fault for missing it.

After a short bus ride we arrived at the Motuti Marae. A marae is to the Maori like Indian reservations are in the states. We learned a lot about the culture while we were there. When we first arrived, they performed a ceremony welcoming us on to the marae. They sang a song to us and we had to sing a song back to them, so we decided to sing “Hakuna Matata”, which ended up being totally hilarious and the Maori people loved it.

Us in front of the main building at the marae

After we got settled, they took us on a walk up to their church. The chief told us a story about how a bishop from France had brought Catholicism to New Zealand and the Maori people. When he died, this group of Maori people went to France to retrieve his body so they could have him buried in New Zealand where he meant so much to the people there. They actually brought his body back to this very marae and had him put in a casket in their church. We sat through a short ceremony and got to see the casket of the man who meant so much to the religion and spirituality of these people.

We walked back down to the marae and played some ultimate frisbee on the lawn until dinner time. They fed us a nice dinner, then they took us to a mangrove tidal flat behind the marae. We walked along a wooden catwalk through the tidal flat. At the end, a few of us decided to hop down into the mud and play around. Some people tried to race through the mud and ended up covered in it, which was pretty funny to watch. 

After playing in the mud!

We came back to the marae and got cleaned up, then they separated the girls and the boys to teach us some tribal songs and dances. Our group of girls learned a chant in the Maori language, and the boys learned a dance called the Haka, which is used to intimidate enemies in battle. We came back in to the main room and both groups performed. Watching the boys do this dance (shirtless, by the way!) had to be the most hilarious thing I have ever seen! Some of the Maori people voted on who was the best and of course the boys won, but they deserved it. By this time it as getting pretty late, so we packed it in and went to bed. It was almost like a giant sleepover, because they had laid a bunch of matresses on the floor of the main building, which was pretty cool.

Our marae sleeping arrangements- sleepover!

And We Arrive Safely!

At around 5am I arrived safely in New Zealand! We landed in Auckland airport, got our luggage and headed to our coach bus to meet our driver, Stu. They wanted to keep us busy the first day so we would be more able to adjust to the time difference. So, we were off to our first stop in Auckland, Mt. Eden. Mt. Eden is one of a few inactive volcanoes in Auckland. It is a cinder cone volcano, and we hiked up to the top to see the cone.

The cone at the top of Mt. Eden

 Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard all morning, so I was a little cold and wet during this trip, but it was great to start off the trip going to a volcano! I grabbed some scoria samples to bring back with me, and then we headed off to our next stop.

Next, the group got on a ferry to be taken to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is also a volcano, but unlike Mt. Eden, it is a shield volcano (a much larger volcano with less steep sides). Here, we got on a Volcano Explorer Tour. I hopped on to a tractor-pulled tram and we proceeded up a very rocky and winding path up the mountain. Along the way I learned some really cool things about Rangitoto. It was the most recent of the Auckland volcanoes to have erupted, and that was 700 years ago. There was tons of volcanic rock everywhere, a type known by the Hawaiian name A’a. I have never seen anything like the amount of broken up rock that littered the slopes of this volcano.

Me on the volcanic rocks!

When we finally got up to near the top, we got off and climbed up to the summit. Right when I made it to the top, heavy fog set in so I didn’t get to see the fantastic view we were planned, but it was still amazing to just be at the top of such a large volcano. Then it was back down the other side, to the only sandy beach on the island. I grabbed some rock samples there too, because the rocks on the beach had been smoothed and weathered by the water. We had a few more minutes to explore the island before hopping back on the ferry to the main land.

We then headed in our coach to our hostel in Auckland, got comfortable, and spent the rest of the afternoon getting lunch and exploring the city. We shopped for a little bit, had dinner, then spent the evening getting settled. What a great way to spend the first day!