Chris and Weslie In NEW ZEALAND: Ahipara --> Cape Reinga --> Paihia

We finally did a bit of work at Ahipara the day before we left. We cleaned out the chimney and fireplace and spent about 3 hours or so splitting wood for it. 4 hours of work is not a bad price for 8 nights accommodation. As it was raining the last 4 days there we did not have a chance to do much outside of going to the beach a couple more times, eat some good food, catch a sunset, and watch the Champions League final(at a ridiculous 6:30 am).

Sunset at Shepard's Bay

Delicious Curry

Accommodation for 8 nights

On Sunday we left for Cape Reinga and Tapotupotu campground nearby. On the way up to the cape we stopped at a kauri wood gallery; if you need a new couch they have one at a reasonable NZ$55,000. Afterwards we stopped at Te Paki Stream to wander around the huge sand dunes at the north end of 90 Mile Beach. After we had hung around there for about an hour we headed up to Cape Reinga and wandered down to the light house to take some pictures.

Huge Dunes

Sinking in

Dunes and Ocean

Path to the Lighthouse

Distances to the rest of the world

Tree Stairs

New Favorite Chair

Kauri scraps...

We then headed to the campground and walked around on the beach for a bit before dinner. Monday we hiked over to Cape Reinga from our campground which took about 5 hours with stops for lunch and to hang out on a small, secluded beach about 2/3 of the way to the cape. We spent the afternoon searching for shellfish for bait so we could go fishing this morning, but could not find a single one on the beach. As it turns out that was fine as it started raining at some point during the night and continued raining with high winds, and for a bit sleet and hail, until we got almost to our next location; Paihia at the Saltwater Lodge. We moved it up a day due to the weather; we had been intending to camp another night somewhere on the coast between the Karikari peninsula and Paihia.