Northern New Zeland Cape Adventure- Part 2

After recovering from food poisoning and hanging out in Hayden's living room watching DVD's for a few days, we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Whit and Claire back to Auckland on Friday and the rendezvous with Ashley. After a quick lunch we headed to Whangarei to pick up Ashley Black of Austin fame and California up-bringings. Ashley is traveling through New Zealand until July and is another good friend we met through frisbee.

{In Hayden's backyard with my Valentine's Sunflower from Cara...still recovering}




Hayden lived up to being the greatest host to a traveller by lending us his car for a week long road trip to the northern cape of the North island. The plan was to drive to the Ocean Beach Hat tourney for a weekend of beach ultimate and fun and then to head north for a hike around Cape Reinga.

{Whit and Ashley hanging out at Ocean Beach}

Whit and Ashley were chosen for the Chocolate team. Claire and I were on the Tan team. And Cara was all alone on team orange, she was just happy she didn't get here third green jersey. There were 6 teams total and about 60 players at the tournament. It was the tournaments 5th year. Here is the weekend in quick summary: Nic from Switzerland (played with Cara and I in Hawkes Bay) was on my team again along with one NZ'er - Van, Nicko from France/NZ, Jordan and Bec from Canada/NZ, and Ben from the UK. Cara's team had a good mix of players as well. Team Tan's international strength led us to the finals after a tie in the go-to game against Team Green to face them again in the finals. Down 4-6 at half, we rallied in the second half scoring 7 in a row to win the game 12-8, coming away with some super sweet cooler bags as our prize! We met a lot of good frisbee people and had a great weekend at a beautiful beach. Besides the frisbee, the main highlight was seeing a pod of dolphins jumping high out of the water to celebrate the perfect weather and beautiful water.

Sunday afternoon we headed north and found a campsite in hilly farmland. We were a little worried a farmer would come along in the early morning and let us know we shouldn't be there, but it was not a problem and we all had a pretty good night's sleep. It was reassuring to know NZ doesn't have any animals or insects that can hurt you while we were setting up our tents at dusk in thick 3 foot high grass.

Monday we headed to the Bay of Islands to check it out and stock up on food for the week. Our next stop was Matauri Bay where we were told was camping. It turned out to be a camper van resort (not what we were looking for) but a beautiful bay where we stopped to have lunch, read, and go for a swim. After lunch we headed to the Manginangina Kauri forest to camp and relax for the evening. On the way to our campsite we stopped for some tree appreciation. In short, Kauri's are a super old tree with think trunks and cool adaptations which have helped them to survive all these years.

Tuesday we headed north to Cape Reinga. In Te Paki we rented sand boards and drove to the giant sand dunes for some "sledding." We made the most of our 4-hour rental. After each of successfully went down a huge dune headfirst...very fast! We started experimenting on smaller dunes with surfing, bobsledding, dual slides, and completed the first ever 5 person slide on 2 boards!
{We had a couple spills, but everyone came out injury free}














That night we camped at Spirits Bay, which would be the beginning of our 3-day backcountry hike. Our hike around Cape Reinga would take us 41 km's over quiet beaches, hills, sand dunes, streams, quick sand and tidal pools. We had beautiful sunsets, a little rain, amazing sunshine, cool (with one muggy) nights, treated water (boiling and iodine) and great camping meals. We experienced hitchhiking (to get back to our car at the beginning of the trail), the best fish and chips in NZ (at Waitiki Landing restaurant), and generous ice cream scoops after we finished the hike. It was a great hiking crew and we all got the most of our three days in the backcountry. It was our first backcountry trip, and we are excited for our next one on the South Island. Here are some pictures to show you some of the beauty we experienced.

After our walk we returned to Hayden's house to relax and get things together before our next adventures. Claire and Whit are on their way to London to start their European adventures, while Ashley, Cara, and I will make our way to the South island to play frisbee this weekend and then find some work and more walks!