Easter Egg Hunting in Northland

We'd just left Wellington yet again and had a long drive north yet again. Our route took us back through Tongariro, but we didn't stop, since it was snowing there. Sledding Mt. Doom sounded entertaining, but they recommend against doing the Alpine Crossing in poor visibility for some reason (maybe extreme danger) oh well. We also drove through a huge pine forest planted during NZ's Great Depression that went on for miles and miles. Ok well it was more impressive than it sounds, sorry. We made it close to Auckland, but traffic grew heavy in the evening because of the start of the Easter weekend. Easter is a pretty big holiday in NZ, sort of like Thanksgiving at home, except schools get a couple weeks off, though workers get four days. And if you keep your store open, you have to charge a 15% tax. I guess Kiwis take their crucifixions, resurrections, etc pretty seriously! We found a random car park in a random town and parked for the night. We didn't see any other campervans so we were a little nervous, especially when some sedans pulled up and parked next to us. Uh oh, we thought, are we invading someone's drug dealing spot or something? In the morning we realized it was just Kiwis travelling for the long weekend and needing a place to sleep just like us. They were all very friendly though somewhat incomprehensible. They did warn us about the coup, or anti-coup, or whatever it was, in Fiji. More on that later....

The next morning we kept heading north towards the Bay of Islands. Traffic grew heavy, though luckily we'd been warned to avoid Highway 1 north of Auckland, where a new toll system was causing queues 8 km long. Along the way we saw a sign advertising hangi, the NZ equivalent of a luau, which we had read about but had not tried or even been able to find anywhere. Hangi involves roasting a variety of meats and tubers wrapped in leaves in a pit with hot stones, similar to kahlua pig. A few yards past the hangi sign we noticed some kind of wreck or commotion on the roadside, but we were too focused on finding our hangi stand. Later we learned a motorcyclist had gone off the embankment and died. Wow, did we ever feel like assholes for obliviously buying hangi. Anyway we got our hangi and it was horrible - some sweet potatoes which were ok, and a lot of tough chewy mutton, and a little tough steak. Ugh. Not worth dying over, for sure!

That afternoon we made it to Whangarei, where we checked out a kauri forest walk. Kauris are like redwoods in California, as in old-growth stands barely exist anymore. I would say they are a bit more rare than redwoods though, since they are slower to grow and most of the land has been converted to pasture. After admiring the trees, we tried to check out a self-guided cave (we refused to pay for more glowworm "boat rides.") Unfortunately the stream inside the cave was pretty high and Sam got scared of the Shrieking Eels. After getting soaked up to our wastes, we turned back. We saw more nice waterfalls, just for the heck of it, then went to a caravan park outside of town near the coast. There was no surf but there was the Southern Hemisphere's Longest Footbridge, yay!

The next day we drove through the Bay of Islands, but lacking a yacht, didn't stay. Mom & Dad's advice was to just go make friends with somebody who owned a boat, but we were feeling a little shy and also overwhelmed by the Easter crowds. So we continued up to Cape Reinga, the long peninsula that forms the tip of the north island. We camped at a busy campground - and we'd thought we could hide from the Easter crowds! It was up at the end of the cape, where we were devoured by both mosquitoes and sandflies. Oh my gosh I haven't mentioned sandflies yet have I! If you think mosquitoes are bad, you've got to try sandflies, which are little gnats that come out in droves all over NZ, at all hours of the day, and have a horribly unbearably itchy bite. The cold of autumn had mostly kept them at bay, but it was noticeably warmer up at the cape. The next morning, we drove to the lighthouse, not one of our safer drives due to the unsealed road and the fact that we were constantly reaching down to slap sandflies and scratch sandfly bites on our ankles. We checked out the lighthouse at the end of the cape, apparently a Maori spiritual site where you should not eat or drink. But bombing down the lighthouse path on a mountain bike in a tour group was somehow ok.

Along the west side of the cape stretches 90 Mile Beach, actually about 60 miles long (oh those Kiwis and their moderate exaggeration! In America we would call it 200 mile beach, at least!) There are huge sandunes, and the beach itself is so flat and the sand so well packed that the beach is actually part of the NZ highway system. Unfortunately rental vehicles are prohibited from driving on the beach (the sand isn't that well packed.) So we headed to the south end of the beach, to the famous surf spot Shipwrecks. As per usual, there was no swell at this supposedly famous spot, so we hung out and ate fish and chips. We also watched locals drive all kinds of vehicles at high speed along the beach, from motorcycles, to pickup trucks, to little 4 wheel quad bikes, and even bicycles. Our favorite was the tractors used to tow boats though.

The next morning we managed to catch a few waves, but they were mostly closing out. I got tired of going end over end (my fin is long and scary) so I caught whitewater until I cut my foot on a shell or something. Sam took one look at the cut and then promptly gave away my wetsuit and took the fins off my board, declaring no more surfing for our last week in NZ. Oh well. That night we stayed at the same caravan park - wow - this was the first time we'd stayed in one place for two nights since Raglan! But the next morning there was no swell, so we decided to head back south. We were originally planning on going back to Piha, but decided in the end just to stay in Auckland. We were getting a bit nervous about the Fiji situation and wanted to get online and make a plan.

We learned that in Fiji, the judges that had declared the military dictatorship illegal had been fired, and the constitution had been flushed down the toilet, which had backed up, creating a high plumbing bill, so the banks had been taken over by the military, and to reduce embarrassment, all foreign journalists had been expelled and the local press had been shut down. I guess this happens once every few months or so in Fiji and is a good opportunity to visit for cheap, but we were a little nervous since we'd never been there before. Mainly we didn't want to get stuck there and have to stay at a nicer hotel with a security guard and all that, since the actual resorts in Fiji cost hundreds of dollars per night. Long story short: we couldn't change our tickets, so we bought new tickets directly to Hawaii and left the next day. But not before enjoying some final meat pies at the airport! Mmmm...meat pies. We had tickets with United/Air New Zealand and it was a very pleasant flight with a TV for each passenger. We entertained ourselves watching Flight of the Conchords for 8 hours and before we knew it, we were across the dateline in Hawaii, and it was yesterday!