on the way to Cape Reinga

Our first destination was Cape Reinga, at the very top of New Zealand. On the way there, we wanted to explore the whole surrounding area - called Northland - with its beautiful beaches and cliffs. Before we set off, we had to do a big shopping trip and there we randomly ran into one of the two couples we had bought our car with at the same time (the silly ones :P). Since we wanted to go in the same direction and they seemed more sympathetic to us than before, we decided to continue driving together. Our first stop was Orewa, but we didn't see much of it because we arrived late at night in the dark and left the (expensive!) campsite early. We actually wanted to drive straight to the top the next day, but when we took a break at a campsite in Whangerei at noon, we also ran into the other couple ('the friendly backpacker couple') from Kiwicruisecontrol again. Of course, we couldn't simply ignore this coincidence, so the six of us continued on our way up. After we had visited the Whangerei Falls and were expelled from our originally planned sleeping place at the iSite car park, we finally found a free parking space to sleep in Kawakawa.

The next day, we visited a 'Glowworm Cave' - a cave where tiny worms live on the ceiling that glow. In the dark, it looks like hundreds of stars are shining there. However, it was quite expensive for what it offered... But we were still beginners when it came to saving money :P. After that, we went to the 'Rainbow Waterfall', where we could even swim at its foot, which made us very happy considering the hot weather! Then we had to drive up a very long, narrow and winding road until we finally reached our next sleeping spot - a meadow in the middle of nowhere between mountains and forests, with 1000 mosquitoes and other creatures (!!)). For the first time, we also had no signal there without warning and were really completely cut off from the rest of the world. :P The next day was spent with a lot of driving again, but at least we got almost all the way to the top. Just before Cape Reinga, we found a beautiful campsite right by the sea with a great beach and again in the middle of nature. *-* Because we liked it so much there, we stayed for two nights and spent two days relaxing and happy on the beach with great weather!

But then we had to do something again and so on the 20th of February, we finally went to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga. The most spectacular thing was that two seas meet there and you could see exactly how the waves collide.

At first there were quite a lot of people there, but after a brief drizzle, we got rid of them and could enjoy the beautiful view. :))