Beautiful white silica sand beach we visited on our way to the top. A good taste of things to come!
Great Exhibition Bay
01. Far North
Here’s the first section of video from our walk across New Zealand, I’ll be uploading the rest as I get them finished. From Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island we walked down 90 Mile Beach, across to the east coast via the Herekino and Raetea forests, along the Bay of Islands and then through the Russell Forest.Thar she blows! Cape Reinga, the start of the walk
Brilliant to finally see the famous light house out in front of us and knowing the real adventure is about to start. But also feeling quite apprehensive suddenly. I think about the isolation, and being so far from people and help ( although I know that i’m in the expert wilderness-trained hands of Cookie of course ) and I know everything will be totally fine – but I think the remoteness of the location and the magnitude of the task in hand is starting to sink in! And, as they say in Bad Boys II, “This shit just got real!”.
First sight of our first beach
Nicky gives it the once over, “just like Cornwall… but MASSIVE” she says.
Nipped around this bit just before the tide came in
This is an old lava flow that we’re walking along, apparently the top end of New Zealand used to be a separate volcanic island which has been joined onto the north island by the ocean currents pushing sand up the coast. There’s certainly plenty of sand about.. Gets everywhere!
Nicky walking along Te Werahi Beach
The first beach. Excited to be by the seaside.
Climbing up Herangi Hill
Blimey it’s like the Sahara Desert here!
Cookie with Cape Maria van Diemen in the background
The cape in the background was named by Abel Tasman after the wife of his patron, Anthony van Diemen. It is – along with the Three Kings Islands – one of only two geographic features in New Zealand to retain the names given to them by Abel Tasman. Cheers Wikipedia! Well I’m not sure if Maria was a looker, but the cape named after her isn’t too shabby.
First view of the seemingly endless 90 Mile Beach
In some respects I’m looking forward to 90 Mile Beach, it’s flat easy walking. But then again I’m also fearing it because it’s long, featureless and possibly very tedious.. time will tell!
Camp 2
We still haven’t found any grass to camp on yet.. Camped tonight behind the beach in the sand dunes, picked this spot because it was slightly damp to give the tent pegs something firmer to stick into! We camped near and filled our boots with water from Te Paki Stream, water tasted good, but a bit worrying that the the stream also doubles up as a road for all the fisherman and tour buses..
