A highway on a beach? (Part 9)

We have left the Cape behind us and are heading toward home, sort of. We have to drive west just a bit first so we can drive along one of the most unusual highways in the world. We're headed toward Niney Mile Beach. 

That's right. Ninety Mile Beach is officially a highway, but it is one that requires four-wheel drive vehicles or buses like ours. (It was also once an airstrip.)

This is the last leg of our day's adventure. 

I could tell right away when he got on to 'Route Ninety Mile.' Gone was the feeling of concrete under our tires. Not that the going was completely smooth. It wasn't. The sand undulated as the waves had spread it in front of us and those of us at the back of the bus especially undulated in response. The driver steered us back and forth just a little as we proceeded southward along the beach and I could feel the subtle fish-tailing we did. Quite a unique feeling. 

Before long, we stopped along the beach to explore a little.

The beach is actually very firm underfoot. Any vehicle could drive on this surface. 

 And for a highway, there is remarkably little traffic. 

The tide was way out and the surf about average for this coast.  

Always something interesting to find in the sand.  

We're back in the bus again and now the driver decided to spray up a little surf...It was interesting. Another nice thing about driving down Ninety Mile Highway is that it is Straight! No hairpin curves every quarter mile. 

We have one more stop to make before returning home and that is for afternoon tea. We'd be stopping at Ka-Uri. Here is a place I'd like to get to know better. 

Our driver explained the meaning of the name to us. It is a play on words that unfortunately, I forgot. No problem, I wrote to the company and got this very nice reply:

"Kia Ora Doug,

Thanks for your enquiry,

The name Ka-Uri means “A Spark Of Life”

Ka-Uri was formally known as Ancient Kauri Kingdom. A Local Iwi (Tribe) Ngati Kuri purchased the business and rebranded - Giving the establishment a new spark of Life ‘Ka-Uri’ Ka = referring to a Spark ‘Uri= referring to Life. The word Ka-Uri also put together as one word is KAURI- Our main business product."

I've read some reviews of the business that said that it's food was average, that it's coffee was average, and worst of all, that it was (Oh, No) a tourist trap. 

It's true that it's located in the middle of nowhere, at a wide spot in the road. It's true that it's food and coffee was no better, but also, no worse than hundreds, okay, dozens of other cafes that I've tried. And I didn't mind a bit that they had a show room filled to the brim with  Kauri Wood gifts, some of them highly polished. Just the kind of thing that (oh, that word again) tourists love to buy in quantity to prove where they have been. 

Look beyond the cafe and the show room you nay-sayers. Don't you realize what the real story of Ka-Uri is? It's certainly not about coffee and scones. 

This company uses kauri trees that have been buried underground for tens of thousands of years. Talk about re-cycling. Their sawmill must be amazing.  All their milling process really. I would pay to see it.  They give people (yes, even tourist people) the chance to own a piece of history. 

I bought a couple of soap holders myself. Not that my soap needs a new way of being held. The little porcelin holder that Jeanne bought does a fine job. I bought them because I wanted to hold and then to own a piece of wood that is, give or take, 45,000 years old. What a marvelous treasure. 

When I did a post about the time Jeanne and I went to Galbraithe's Alehouse, I showed you a bar counter that was carbon-dated at 40,000 years. I can't help it. I get a kick out of that kind of stuff. 

Check it out again if you care to.
http://fostersoe.blogspot.co.nz/2017/05/mothers-day-treat-2017.html

The other cool thing about the place is that they have a section of an ancient kauri log that a guy with a chainsaw carved into a spiral staircase. Take a look... 

There it is. It doesn't look as big from across the room as it does when standing next to it. 

Wow

We're at the top of it now. 

Arram is heading back down.

Inside

And about to exit. Amazing. 

When I stood at Galbraith's bar and rested my elbows on its 40,000 year-old surface, I felt a bit of awe that I could have such an experience. Now, I have a piece of my own to value and to hand down to others who may some day also appreciate this for what it is.  -djf

Cape Reinga (Part 8)

Cape Reinga is a very sacred place to the Maori. They knew it as Rerenga Wairua, or the leaping place of the spirits. Each believed that when they died, their soul would slowly makes its way northward to this point. It would then leap from these very windy heights. If they had lived a good life, they would sprout wings and fly toward Hawaiki and Heaven. Reinga, in fact, means Heaven. If they did not deserve wings, they fell into the sea below. Maurianuku, the entrance to their hell, lies beneath the surface and is hidden by the kelp which is kept in constant motion by the waves. 

This was an amazing place to see. The winds on the day we visited (I looked it up) were between 36 and 44 miles per hour with gusts to 48. 

Here we are, just starting our hike. It was a relatively warm day, but 40 mph winds can cause a chill nontheless. 

Just up ahead, we can go to the left and climb to the peak, or we could turn to the right and follow the path down to the lighthouse. We are going up.

This is the view to the west from the very top.

This is the view to the east and you can see a sectioin of the path to the lighthouse. 

There it is.

And this is looking north. 

Here you can see the Tasman Sea on the left, meeting the Pacific Ocean on the right. It is not a peaceful union. 

This picture and the next two go together. Boy, would I love to make my way down to that little beach. 

Look at that tree hanging on to the right side of that cliff. 

I could not see the Three Kings Islands today. I would have loved to, and I strained to see them, but it wasn't to be. There are 13  tiny, uninhabited islands that lie 34 miles to the north.
Three Kings Islands captured my imagination a few years ago when I first heard about the one-of-a-kind plant that was found there. Here is what I learned on Wikipedia. 

A solitary plant of Tecomanthe speciosa or the Three Kings Vine was first discovered on the Three Kings Islands, 55 km off the northern tip of New Zealand, during a scientific survey in 1945. No other specimens have ever been found in the wild. 

Although the plant may once have been common on the Three Kings, by the time of its discovery goats that had been introduced to the islands had reduced the entire population to a single specimen on Great Island, making it one of the world’s most endangered plants. The remaining specimen grew on a cliff that was so steep, that even the goats could not reach it. It was rescued by horticulturalists who took cuttings from the original plant and goats were subsequently eradicated from the island. The original specimen still grows in the wild, and has developed more vines through the natural process of layering in the years since its discovery.

I find that absolutely astounding. And the best part is, I saw several plantings of Tecomanthe growing at Summerland School. Some of you may remember my excitement several years ago when I asked Ian, the school's groundskeeper, what that plant was, and he told me!

I see them often now and rarely pass without thinking about what a priviledge it is to do so. 

Amiri in an explorer at heart. He is always leading our band forward. "Come on Grandpa, come on," he is saying. "We're almost to it." 

(He reminds me so much of myself at his age. I remember a day that my family drove out to the mouth of the Presque Isle River. There was about a half mile hike from the parking lot to the mouth of the river through virgin white pine forests. I was so excited. It drove me crazy that my parents and younger siblings were so incredibly slow. I finally ran ahead. 
Look at Amiri...he can't wait to get there. Good on ya, Amiri. Keep that spirit.) 

This is one of the hiking paths I would have loved to take. Can you imagine walking along it with 48 mph gusts going on? I would have kept well away from the edge. 

The only problem with taking a bus tour is that schedules have to be maintained. We were rapidly running out of time and had to get back to the bus waiting for us in the carpark over that hill. With one last look northward...

...we had to leave.   -djf
(I could have sat there for hours.)

We'll do 500 kilometers today folks, you might want to fasten your seat belts... (Part 7)

When we boarded our bus for our tour to the northern-most tip of the North Island, our bus driver/tour guide greeted us and gave us the basic itinerary for the day. It was the same spiel that his company's brochure promised of course, but then he added. "Although on a bus, seat belts are not mandatory, and I won't be doing a seat check, you might want to buckle up. We're doing 500 kilometers today." 

We all soon found out that his last statement was not just talk. Driving that distance on New Zealand's very curvy, climbing and falling roadways was not going to be like a drowsy amble, it was going to be an edge of your seats, athletic event. I soon found myself watching the road ahead and getting ready to lean into the next curve. I slept like a rock that night and it wasn't because of all the hiking we did, or the sights we saw, or the photographs I took. It was because I was tired from the bus ride. 

But it was great. The driver was a very nice guy and had a great sense of humor and an almost  never-ending stream of facts to keep us entertained. He also though, recognized that some quiet travel time was pleasant, and told us a couple of times that he was going to give us periods of silence to just enjoy the scenery we were passing. Unless we had a question, of course.

So here's our bus. We were almost the last to board it at our hotel so we were seated in the back where the occasional bounce could have put daylight between us and our seats if we hadn't been securely fastened to it by our seatbelts. 

Welll, the sign says it takes 5 minutes to walk. But that's IF you don't want to stop and admire the trees for a while. I could have spent more time here.

There was a boardwalk the entire way. 

What an amazing place. 

This is a Maori Pa, or earthworks, shaped as a defensive site. 

We were told that Maori Chiefs were buried on top of that rock.

This is our morning tea break beach. It is near Taipa. You are looking out across Doubtless Bay and this is where the Maori first came ashore after leaving their home islands. 

They would have come from that direction.

It's tea time. In a few minutes, we boarded the bus again and covered some miles, ah, kilometers toward our lunch stop. We'll be eating an early lunch today because once we leave there, we will be heading up into the tip of the North Island, and there are no cafe's up there. Even the electricity stops. 

And now it's lunch time. We're at Wagner's Holiday Park on Houhora Harbour. We're having fish and chips. 
This is just a little place way out in the middle of nowhere, but the cafe took care of feeding our busload with remarkable speed. We were greeted by a short assembly line of workers who put togther our meals of fish and chips with efficiency and smiles.

Impressive rocks and hills here.

Some Holiday Park patrons no doubt off for a paddle. 

Our next stop, just a short time later, was at the Te Paki Sand Dunes. Those who wanted to could ride a sandboard. By the way, that is the Quicksand Stream they are crossing to get to the dune. 

You think that is a big sand dune, well check out the next picture. 

You'd get a great ride on that, but I'd hate to think of climbing it again. 

We're back on the bus and heading north again. Next stop is Cape Reinga. I can't wait. It will be the subject of my next post.  -djf

Our evening in the 'Hellhole of the Pacific.' (Part 6)

Take a look again at the header picture. That's Russell, New Zealand, in the distance. Soon we'll be ashore but we had better watch our step. Russell is full of pirates, swindlers, cheats, murderers, and every sort of vice known to man. The one thing it doesn't have is law. Little wonder that's it's nickname is Hell Hole of the Pacific. Anything can happen here and most of the time, does. 

What did I tell you? Here we are just off the ship. I asked a one-eyed guy with a parrot on his shoulder where we might get a meal and he pointed out this place. Do you suppose it's got a kids' menu? 

Wait a minute, this isn't the early 1800's. This is 2018. Russell is not what it once was. Time has transformed it into a peaceful little village that remembers it's sordid past but prefers to earn it's living today by treating it's visitors to only the best of what life has to offer. 

Russell is where we chose to have dinner after our day of touring the treaty grounds. And Dianne was our benefactor for tonight's excursion. Jeanne's sister gave us a very generous Christmas gift that funded our ferry ride to Russell and our dinner. Thanks Dianne!

Come along with us and see the new Russell...

 It was a windy, but quick ride across on the car ferry.

This is the view toward Paihia from the beach in the center of town. 

 We're walking on the pier that extends from the beach.

Amiri and Arram have just met 'Rascal,' who belongs to the lady selling ferry tickets. Allie is looking across the harbour towards Paihia. 
When he was here in 1769, Captain Cook called it 'a most noble anchorage,' because of it's protected, deep-water harbour. This led to it's use for trading with the Maori and eventual rise to become one of the wildest places in the South Pacific..  

That is the Duke of Marlborough Hotel. It has been refreshing 'rascals and reprobates' since 1827, and is still 'the place to go' in town. And, it's where we will have our dinner. 

There it is. It has been cared for all these years. Modern amenities have been added of course, but it has kept the flavor of the original hotel as well.  

 Talk about history. Can you imagine all the types that saw this view and walked, stumbled or staggered through that door?

I'll bet that stairway could tell some stories! 

 Amiri is always the explorer. He's off to see what he can see...

It is light and airy in here. The sea breezes keep it comfortable.  

A small formal dining room from a past age.  

We opted to eat in the 'Beer Garden' 

 "A toast to Dianne."

 'May your next visit to NZ bring you as much pleasure as we feel around this table tonight.' 

We adults had The Dukes Seafood Chowder, Amiri had Calamari and Arram chose a hamburger. 

That is seriously good chowder. 

We are finishing up and the sun is getting lower in the sky. Plenty of time yet for a walk.  

The tree is a fig and it also dates from the 1800's 

 It's really filling up now with diners. Glad we beat the crowd.

 Evening is coming on and finds two boys still on the gravel beach. 

A sample of the beach at Russell. 

I don't know how many of you are fans of SpongeBob SquarePants but our boys certainly are. One of the characters from the animated series is Eugene H. Krabs, who owns the Krusty Krab. Well, the spelling of this little takeaway place varies from it's famous cartoon counterpart but it was close enough to delight Arram and Amiri. Good thing I didn't find this place until we were almost back to our car. The boys would have wanted to eat here instead of the hotel I think. 

As we were leaving town, I spotted this ad. It would have been fun to see this.  

As you can see, rain started as we boarded our ferry for the return trip.  -djf