Cape Reinga - the northernmost point of New Zealand

Hello dear ones,

I'm back again and will tell you directly what happened at the northern end of New Zealand. After sleeping for a long time, by our standards, I woke up after 8 am. We had breakfast in bed again. Then we rearranged the car and had a cup of tea before we set off to explore the beach where we stayed overnight. After walking through the bay, Lina skipped some stones and we sat in the sand and chatted. Then we headed towards Cape Reinga. There we walked to the lighthouse and saw where the two oceans (Tasman Sea and South Pacific) meet. According to the Maori, this is the place where the male ocean meets the female ocean and the whirlpools that are created are their dance, symbolizing their connection and the creation of new life. Furthermore, this is also the point from where their souls embark on their final journey, making it an extremely sacred place. After taking our time to observe everything, we walked back towards the car and also caught a glimpse of the distant giant dunes of Te Paki. We drove to them next, but we decided against surfing on them. Lina has done it before and it was too windy to climb the huge dune. Moreover, the people we were observing did not seem very successful.. well, after that we continued to 90 Mile Beach, where we were sensible and parked the car safely in the car park instead of driving on the beach. It is possible to drive on the beach, but regularly cars get stuck and then fall victim to the incoming tide.. no no, that's not necessary. We preferred to do some sports ourselves and walked along the beach. That was fun and we could discover a lot more. After a long break in the sand, we headed towards the campsite. However, since we still had some time and there were no more activities in the nearby area, we spent a bit of office time at McDonald's. They have Wi-Fi there, which is very useful for getting some things done that need to be taken care of. I started looking for new HelpX hosts where I can spend the next period of time and sent a few emails. When that was done, we drove to our campsite where we had delicious wraps for dinner. This campsite is not significantly different from the others we have stayed at recently, except that I had to put on my gumboots to walk to the toilets over a flooded road. Luckily, I was given these by my former flatmate in Christchurch. The water was honestly up to my ankles, not a nice thought to have to walk on the gravel road with regular shoes or barefoot. Now we are back in bed and listening to the other campers, who apparently haven't gotten cold yet and don't mind the darkness.

That's it for today. We have planned some more nice things for tomorrow and then we will spend our last night together in the car before heading to Auckland, where our paths will separate on the 25th of October...

I will definitely keep you updated.

Until then,

Your Jessi