Cape Rainga and 90-Miles Beach

On the west side, we continued northwards. The goal was the northernmost point of New Zealand, Cape Rainga.

At the very top of the north, New Zealand becomes very narrow. From Kataia, there is only one road leading up to the Cape for the last 100 km. This is also the last opportunity to shop in a larger supermarket. Further north, there are only small villages with "dayries", which are convenience stores in Späti size for emergencies. Surprisingly, the land is cultivated almost to the Cape, mainly with cattle farms.

On the west side, there is an extremely long and fairly wide beach, the "90-Miles Beach". We pitched our tent in Waipapakauri Beach, a village at the southern end of the giant beach. We were overwhelmed by the sight of the beach. You could not really see the end, what a vastness! The beach is also quite wide and in many parts quite firm, so that it is allowed to be used as an official road as an alternative to the highway! However, only for 4-WD cars. Large warning signs provide information on how to drive in sand and that this should only be done at low tide... In Waipapakauri Beach, there was a vehicle access to the beach road, and we also saw some cars on the beach. And one that got stuck in the soft sand when driving out. It was a modern SUV that only looked like a 4-WD, but only had front-wheel drive. It was a rental car with tourists, obviously they didn't know exactly what they had rented... I naturally refrain from disclosing the nationality of the tourists, the brand of the car, and a photo here. The next day, the car was gone, so somehow they must have "got the car out of the mud".

In any case, we drove up to the Cape on the paved road, as driving on the beach seemed not so smart, as there are also several water channels, and having the motorcycles bathe in salt water did not seem like a good idea to us. Unfortunately, the weather was not so great, it was cold and quite windy, but at least it was somewhat dry. The drive through this landscape was still impressive, while the lighthouse itself is a real disappointment, at least in terms of size. What a small cute thing! And that at the northernmost end of the country.