Big Trip

...well, New Zealand, anyway. Well, almost. We braced ourselves for the cost, and took a two hour scenic flight up to Cape Reinga, which is the most northerly lighthouse in NZ. It's pretty close to the most northerly point, but it's northerly enough for us. We flew up a little bit of the east coast, over the market gardens of Kerikeri and then the farmland further north, just west of the vast curve of Doubtless Bay, and then crossed to the west coast a little way up Ninety Mile Beach (which, incidentally, is 60 miles long, and a state highway). There were a few cars on the beach, racing along, (oh, and one being extracted from the sand) and one lucky nutter on a motorbike. Then at the northern end of the beach we turned inland and landed in a field on top of a hill. The landing strip was marked out with tyres painted white, and had a very interesting dip in the middle where it got quite narrow. The terminal building was actually a 4x4 people carrier. We continued our journey by road, up the last twenty gravel-only kilometres of State Highway 1, to Cape Reinga lighthouse. From there, you can see where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean join. It was a pretty calm day, so there wasn't a great deal of activity in the sea - apparently in less calm weather you can see quite a bit of white water along the join. We could make out two lines of white horses and noticeable currents stretching into the distance, though.
More moving to me was the single tree on the distant cliffs which is believed by the Maori to be the start of the conduit to the spirit world. They believe that your spirit being climbs down the tree into a cave below, where it rests for three days (which is why Maori funerals last three days). Then it walks out onto the flat rocks beyond and into the area where the oceans meet to be swiftly transported to the spirit world.
We had afternoon tea by another beautiful sandy beach at Tapotupotu Bay, with only a few other people for company, and then went to find some giant dunes for sand tobogganing. Actually, they were big, but not compared with Moreton Island, and the tobogganing was pretty pedestrian too, but those weren't the main reasons for coming.
Back to the airfield, and an entertaining takeoff for our flight back down the east coast. We started with the amazingly white silica sands of Great Exhibition Bay (no public access - you have to be a friend of the farmer's), and then back down Doubtless Bay. There were a few small, privately owned beaches, and much talk of escalating property prices. Finally, we flew back over the Bay of Islands with its coastline that could have been designed by Slartibartfast and the hundred and umpteen islands within.
We finished the day with dinner in Kerikeri at a pizzeria advertising gluten free pizzas. Excellent.