Tramping the Northern Most Point of New Zealand

Hello all! I am safe and sound from my last (and first) three day tramp around the northern most point of publicly accesible land in New Zealand. The tramp was fabulous too, however I don't think I'll tramp on beaches again. Sand is tough to walk through.

Anyway, we started off three days ago. I met up with a German named Martin in the hostel that I was staying at. He wanted to do this tramp with me so I waited one extra day to go with him. We started by buying a bus tour of the cape, and when the bus got to Te Paki stream, it dropped us off. It was kind of amusing to see us with all these tourists in the bus because our bags were huge! Everyone else only had cameras, and they had no idea that we were just being dropped off. But we got to see some fun things on the tour as well.

On the tour, we passed by a store with a Kauri tree in it. a Kauri, tree is about the size of a redwood. So huge. Anyway, they had carved a spiral staircase inside this tree. Apparently it is the only "inside a tree spiral staircase" in the world, however good that title is too have.

We then stopped quickly at some sand dunes and sledded down them. Don't get too exited however. This does not compare to sledding in the least. It is slow, and much harder to walk up the sand dunes then it is to walk up snow. Even when the snow is pretty deep. We found it was actually more fun to just run as fast as you could down these dunes without falling down. Once again, we probably looked pretty funny. The only two people out of about 60 that were just running up and down dunes, instead of sledding.

Then it was off on our tramp. The first day was only a four hour walk to the most beautiful beach and campsite on the whole tramp. We had the beach completely to ourselves, the weather was perfect, and we got to see some stars finally. It was warm, and we got to swim in the ocean, and play some frisbee. All around good times. Here is a picture of me at the beginning of the beach.

So, you might think beach walking is fun. That is where you are sorely mistaken though. Beaches are soft and long. See the far side of the beach in that last picture? That is where we camped, and it took about an hour to get there. In the mountains you could cover that distance in 15 minutes! So it was a good experience to have, but I think I'm done with tramping on beaches now. :)

The second day we crossed over Cape Reinga. The Lighthouse up there is gorgeous, albeit infested with tourists. Here's an example of how eco friendly New Zealandars are though. The Lighthouse uses a fifty watt bulb! Incredible! It is powered off solar panels too! It is also completely automated from Wellington. Pretty amazing if you ask me.

After the lighthouse we walked over to another established camping area. It was also crowded and we had to pay for camping. So that was kind of a bummer. It also had started to rain on us so we were feeling kinda miserable.

Then for the third long day. The third day we walked for about 7.5 hours. It was a total of 16km (10 miles) and over some interesting ridges and bays. If I were to go back, I would spend all my time in Pandora Bay. We would've liked to stay there a night but somebody had already taken the only good campspot. They also thought they were completely alone, because as soon as we showed up, they ran off to get dressed. Yep, they were completly naked, and sure enough too embarresed to say hi as we walked by! :) (I won't post pics of them. hehe!)

Then we had to walk across the longest and most difficult beach of them all. Spirits Bay. Still gorgeous, but way too long! Just Knee-bending work to get across it! Once we finally did, after conserving all the water we could, we stopped at another camp ground for the night. Also crowded, but a good place to Hitch a ride from the next morning. So needless to say, I had a great time! Now I'm back in Kaitaia, and looking forward to heading down to the Bay of Islands to go swimming with some dolphins! Apparently the Kauri Forest is also down in that area, so I'll check out the huge trees in their natural enviroment soon!

Hope you all had a fabulous Xmas! Trust me, I'm missing the snow plenty! And have a grand New Years. (Is the house of Hamatco going to be hosting a new years party this year?)

Cheers!