3/7/2010 9:04 PM
Sadly, we left Paihia this morning. If we ever come back to New Zealand, we’re definitely coming back to that town. So beautiful. However, we have tons to look forward to on this trip, so no worries. The drive to Waitakere Ranges Regional Park was just under four hours; pretty much the same as the drive up. We got into the park around 2pm. The park is pretty huge; basically a giant rain forest with huge trees and trails. It’d take us forever to see it all, so we just did a 1:15 hour trek the book suggested. However, being the super star athletes we are, the trek took us about 40 mins. Ha. I think that was a little mislabeling, or perhaps it took into account the time people spent waddling along the trail. Either way, we were kinda disappointed it was so short, but the scenery was pretty amazing. We passed by trees that were hundreds, if not thousands of years old. One place we came across was called the Kauri Cathedral. Kauri trees are the biggest trees in the park (maybe in all of New Zealand). They tower hundreds of feet high. In this one “cathedral” there was a group of around seven, forming a semi circle. When you looked up at them, it literally looked like you were in a giant ceilinged cathedral made out of trees. Way cool.
After this trek, we opted to check out Bethels Beach. It was pretty much just a beach, but for some reason it was wicked. The lead up to the beach was a sandy pathway with giant dunes on one side, and a lagoon backed by a grassy mountain on the other. The beach itself was huge. A very wide boulevard of sand leading up to the ocean, and crazy long in both directions. It was also a “black sand” beach; which is basically dark tan with traces of what looks like ash. However, what made this way better than any other black sand beach we’ve been to was that it was speckled with shiny diamond like crystals throughout. Neat. We sat on the dune for about 20 minutes or so, just people watching. There was some guy on the beach with a kite, which looked more like a small parachute. Every once in a while he’d get a big gust and jump up with the kite, fly about 15-20 feet, and then land again on the sand. Dang … how cool.
We didn’t stay there took long b/c we were anxious to get back to Auckland. After checking into our hostel (and warding off the two crack whore-hookers across the street who were willing to show us a place we could park overnight for free and was “very safe,” ha, yeah right), we made our way down Queens St. Jess wanted to find some shops, but by this time (6pm on a Sunday) everything was closed. Oh well … there will be plenty more shopping later. Rather, we grabbed a couple kebabs for a quick dinner, made our way back to the hostel, and are now in the lobby reading, journaling, etc. Not sure what’s in store tonight. There’s a wine bar across the street, so maybe we’ll do that. But for now … just more of the same … journaling, reading, and now wine drinking courtesy of the local liquor store. ;)
Tomorrow it’s off to hot water beach on Coromandel, and then, the rest of our journey. Woohoo. This is so far shaping up to be one wicked trip.
