the day started well. went down the road to pick the car up with Jess and started loading. the little red car is then christened with the name "little Chilli" - small yet packed with power. now its all about waiting for the other car consisting of martin bas and agnes to start the drive. after some confusion and discussion, it was then decided that we will drive up to Paihia and then spend our friday night there before continuing our drive to Kaitaia.



day 1 - Auckland - Wellsford - Whangarei - Paihia.

its decided that i will drive first, at Jess hasnt really know auckland's motorways and stuff, plus she has never driven on the left side of the road before. she will then take over the steering wheel once we get to Orewa, pass the toll. Tried to get some music on, but guess the stupid Ipod-Radio transmitter crap doesn't seem to work well in the city, since there's too many radio stations around. Jess looked kinda funny when she started driving, continously flipping the windshield when she wants to indicate turning. but shes done well. a pretty good driver too.


managed to snap a bit of photo on the way.


Reached Wellsford about 6pm. spent an hour waiting for them only to know that they took route 16 instead of SH1. played a bit of guitar and managed to get a bit of sing along too in the car while waiting for those folks.

Jess continued to drive while i DJed in the car, playing things from lady gaga (since she likes it) to Bollywood and Banghra. Fueled up at Whangarei and i took over till we reached Paihia. checked in at a backpackers, made dinner (pasta with mince and sundried tomato and garlic gravy), and went to bed.


day 2 Paihia - Kaitaia - Cape Reinga - 90 mile beach - Ahipara.

started the day early, left Paihia at about 6 ish and reached Kaitaia at about 8. had some breakfast at McD, i would personally prefer to have it at some local cafe, some nice hot bacon and eggs + a cup of hot latte will be good. There is nothing like having a breakfast at a local small town cafe. some took pancakes at McD, while i settled for Kiwi Big Breakfast.


its basically 2 sausages + 2 scrambled eggs + 2 bagels + hash brown and a cup of coffee. unlike Malaysia, coffee here is not bottomless. how i miss those days where i can have bottomless coffee while reading papers at KL sentral McD.

We signed up for the Harrisons tour of cape reinga after that. we all hopped on the bus, and off we go.

the tour guide cum bus driver is a proud Maori called Dennis. He gives us good information about the origins of the countless small towns we passed by on the way to Cape Reinga. most of the time its about the meaning of the names: Awanui (awa-big, nui-water), Waipapa-Kauri (Wai-river, papa - flat land, kauri - a type of native NZ tree), i cant remember the rest.

we stopped by at the cape where theres shallow water and nice scenery. so we all hopped doen and snapped some photos. I started asking everybody to strike the asian or 'ah lian' style pose ans heres what i got:

Agnes might be somehow Asian inside of her - quite natural isnt it? she even managed to add in the shrunken shoulder!
i dont think guys do ah lian pose, but Martijn decided to give it a go anyway. he needs more work.


i was asked about how an asian guy will pose. i was at lost trying to think about an 'ah beng' pose. do we have that? anyways, i took some of my own solo photos too.

gambar jiwang gitu kan?

We continued the bus ride. had a jumbo ice cream at Te Kao, and later on was brought to a nice beach. heres some photos taken at the beach:

the beach

Jess, Bas, Tone

Jess and Tone

and of course, me.

a little bit of my art photo.

sat on the bus for another while before we hit the climax ot the tour, Cape Reinga. it turned foggy and it started to rain when we reached the cape. luckily as we ascended the hill to reach the firehouse, the weather cleared up.

the thick fog as we begin our ascend

starting to clear up
Thats the Pacific Ocean


the firehouse + the distance signboard.


now thats what matter to me. i think KL is like 12 degrees north from equator



The whitewashes indicates where the currents of Tasman sea and Pacific Ocean meets.

group photo

one crazy photo

with jess.

After the whole episode on cape reinga, we were then driven to the sand dunes for some sandboarding! these sand dunes can go as high as 100 meters, and they have quite a steep angle. climbing up with the sliding board aint easy, imagine losing half of your every single climbing step as the sand disintegrates under pressure from your feet. but its sure fun!

the steep hill. damn these buggers are a pain to climb onto!

me.

of course what follows next is that we were given a drive around the 90 mile beach. Tour guide Dennis mentioned that the origin of the beach name was that there was a preacher that spent 3 days walking about the beach preaching the Gospel, taking 30 mile each day. We were then sent back to Kaitaia.

we then drove to Ahipara, at the southern end of the 90 mile beach to setup our camp by the beach. the beach is owned by some Maori farmers, who generously only charged us 5 dollars for a night's stay. here are some of the photos around the beach:

up the hills

camp ground with little chilli posing in the background

ventured inland to find some firewood, unfortunately, as it rained for a bit that day, most of the firewood are wet. luckily they burned alright that night. everybody had a barbie with sausages and beer + a good time socializing with each other.




will continue at part 2. its getting a bit too long here.

Jess also had an entry bout the trip. read it here: http://jessicaswing.sustudents.org/2009/10/cape-reinga/