After nearly 3 months in New Zealand, we finally leave
Auckland. After we had settled in and
found jobs, we found that we didn’t have any time to travel, thinking that a
weekend was not long enough. But this
weekend was Labour Day weekend, and we finally made our escape.
Day one of this adventure was an important lesson in taking
things as they come. Thanks to a flat
tire we missed our afternoon bay cruise, but were upgraded to a longer one two
days later in better weather. Because
of the holiday weekend, every hostel in town was booked, but we got a sweet
discount on a nice room in a quaint little guesthouse. As it turned out, when we left Auckland and
it was pissing down outside, a lot of would-be vacationers cancelled their trip
because the weather forecast was “custard”, while we enjoyed unexpectedly sunny
Northland with considerably fewer crowds.
Sunday we woke early to join our guided tour of the very tip
of New Zealand. I was told we would be
off-roading it half of the time, so I was rather confused when a full sized
coach pulled up in front of the hostel to pick us up. We jumped on the bus and began our drive
north, taking a scenic drive through a forest and stopping to look at one of
New Zealand’s few remaining ancient kauri trees.
We continued north all the way to Cape Reinga, the very tip
of the country, where the Pacific Ocean collides with the Tasman Sea. This is a sacred area to the Maori people,
who believe that this to be where their souls come when they die, the gateway
to the afterlife. I wish I could give a
figure in miles per hour, but suffice it to say that the winds were so
ferocious that at times I feared I would be swept from atop the bluff deposited
out to sea, which, I think, is more or less how the Maori say that it
goes. I wasn’t, but Ross’s hat was lost
to the Pacific.
After fighting the winds back to the bus we continued on our
merry way to go duneboarding, which was, for many, the much anticipated event
of the day. We drove along the road we
came through on, and then all of a sudden we were off the main road, driving
through Te Paki stream cutting through the sandy landscape. We pulled over, each grabbed a boogie board
and climbed to the top of the nearest sand dune. This could have been so much cooler than it
actually was if it weren’t for that pesky wind again, which assaulted me while
I was waiting in the queue, sand stinging my skin and blinding me from both
what I assume would have been a fantastic view of the Tasman Sea and my path
down the dune. Eventually I sandboarded
myself down with my eyes all but shut, tumbled off my board and into a
bush. I spent the next few days finding
ever more sand in my hair, pockets and bra.
Our journey continued down the stream to the inaccurately
named ninety mile beach. The beach is
actually a registered motorway, but only at low tide. Many cars have been lost when the Tasman
claims them at high tide. In our full
sized coach, which clearly had a little something extra under the hood and
which never ceased to amaze me, we hauled ass down the beach, pausing to check
out the skeletons of abandoned cars and a herd of wild horses in the nearby
dunes. As it turns out, we were
fortunate in our trip; we were the only bus who didn’t get stuck in the creek
at the entrance to 90 mile beach. I was
disappointed, actually, getting stuck or rescuing someone else who was stuck in
the sand, I feel, would have added an extra element of adventure.
The next day we went out on a dolphin cruise in the bay. Possibly the highlight of the day was that it
was Labour Day and I was in the sunny and gorgeous Bay of Islands, and getting
paid to be here. I’ve never had a paid
holiday before, and I’m surprised that my first should be a week into a temp
assignment. Just one thing I love about
New Zealand. We found a small pod of
Bottlenose Dolphins and they swam alongside our catamaran for a while. Then the onboard marine biologist gave the ok
and a dozen or so excited tourists donned wetsuits snorkels and flippers and
jumped in the water. Put off by the
commercialism and questioning the ethics of it all, I chose to forgo the
opportunity to swim with wild dolphins, which has always been a dream of
mine. And so it came to be that I stood
on deck and watched a boatful of floundering idiots as they fulfilled my
lifelong dream. They seemed to have a
great time, and I’m sure they thought it was magical, but from my vantage
point, the whole thing looked absolutely ridiculous, and not at all what I’ve
been dreaming about my whole life. One
after another they jumped into the water, while the crew pointed and yelled
“Over there! Swim that way!”, and off they swam, while the dolphins, who are
far more adept swimmers, popped up every now and then to humour them. Sometimes they were swimming with dolphins,
but most of the time, they were just swimming with each other. Then, when some of the swimmers and the
dolphins had gotten a good distance away, they called all the swimmers back
(“Come back! Come back! Get on the boat!”) coasted twenty yards and
then set them loose again (“Go, go, go!
That way! To your left!”) Some of the swimmers didn’t seem like they
really knew what was going on. In the
end, I did feel that the whole situation bordered on harassment, but then
again, I suppose the dolphins could have just left if they had wanted to. It’s one of those grey areas with wildlife
viewing and animal rights where I don’t really know where to draw the line;
where my desires and my beliefs contradict each other.
We spent the afternoon killing time until our bus
arrived. Not wanting to spend any money,
and not having enough time to go for a hike, we spent time sitting on the beach
and laying in the grass in the park before getting on the bus and heading back
to Auckland, to work, and to four more weeks of (hopefully less) itchy feet.
