90 Mile Beach and the Cape

We're staying at a lodge in Houhora, it's actually more like a B & B. It's a beautiful house with huge vaulted ceilings and large windows. We woke up and had a lovely breakfast at 7:30. There was toast, cereal, poached eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and avocado. Delicious. Then we drove up to Cape Reinga. We got up to the Northernmost part of the Island and saw the lighthouse. The 800Pohutukawa tree was sticking off the edge of one of the cliffs. According to maori legend it's the leaping off point for their dead spirits. Also at the Cape you get to see the Tasman Sea from the West meeting with the Pacific Ocean from the East. The Tasman Sea is a teal color and the Pacific Ocean is a darker blue.

Then we drove to the Giant Sand Dunes of 90 mile beach. Leigh and I climbed up some of the dunes and slid down on boogie boards. Unfortunately, even on the extremely steep sand dunes, you don't slide that quickly and you start to slow down super fast. Before sliding down the dunes are intimidatingly steep. After climbing the dune and sliding down a few times we gave up and just sat on the dunes for a bit. We couldn't see the ocean because the dunes in front of us were so high. By the time we left, my shoes were filled with sand and my skin was covered in sand. My pant's cuffs were rolled up while we were at the dunes and when I unrolled them, tons of sand fell out. It was just like that scene from "The Great Escape" when they sneak dirt out from the escape holes in their pant legs. We left and went to buy some ice cream from a general store. It was awesome, we got waffle cones with boysenberry ice cream.

Then we went to Rarawa beach to see the silica sand beaches. They were crunchy. I took a

picture of my footprint because it reminded me of a tar heel.

After we got back to the Lodge, Bruce, the owner, took us down to 90 mile beach in his 4wd SUV. We had a fun chat and talked about shellfish and ambergris. Ambergris is to a spermwhale as a hairball is to a cat. It's apparently something spermwhales hack up and it's something lucky people can find once it has washed up on the shore. Bruce said perfume companies pay between $4-$8 per gram. They use it to neutralize the alcohol in the perfume. Some local dude once found a hunk that was worth $45,000. We drove up and down a bit of 90 mile beach and we didn't get stuck. It was low tide when we drove on the beach. Bruce said that between 6 and 12 cars per year get stuck and then buried once the tide comes in. The nearby forests house lots of wild horses. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see wild horses. They totally symbolize the wildness of Diane Lane's heart.

Also while driving from place to place there were a lot of sheep farms with giant pastures and Leigh kept seeing baby sheep, getting distracted and almost driving off the road. Good times.

It's almost 8 pm and I'm about to crash so peace out.

Cheers,

Molly

Also 90 mile beach is actually 65 miles long. They used horses to measure distances and knew that on average, it would take a horse a day to go 30 miles. However, they didn't take into account that moving through sand is more difficult than normal hills and is going to tire out the horse quicker. So it took the average horse 3 days to get down 90 mile beach even though it was actually only 55-65 miles long.

Failure 2.0

So clearly I did what most people expected me to do, I stopped writing on here. Most likely the few who read this in the beginning have stopped checking it, so my apologies go out into the universe and hopefully I'll get a little credit for at least putting it out there.

Quick synopsis. After leaving Hanmer Springs, I drove up to Orewa which is located a little North of Auckland and crashed at Leigh and Seiger's house. It's a really amazing place with a sheep named Snowy. I've tried to make myself useful around their house: a bit of yard work, some painting, wallpapering and such, you get the general idea.

Gordon left and went back home. I stayed in Orewa and house sat while Leigh and Seiger went to the US and then to London for 3 weeks. After they got back I lived in Seiger's daughter's old room. Leigh and Seiger are the best and I've had an amazing time in Orewa. I spent a lot of my time reading, walking or running on the beach, relaxing and hanging out. I tried bikram yoga, spin class and resistance pilates. Surprisingly enough, none of them were my style.

I also made a bunch of random friends through couchsurfing and I swear I saw one of them on one of New Zealand's tv shows called Noise Control. It's a tv show similar to Cops, but obviously it only deals with noise violations. Yes, it's a great bunch I'm meeting here, but seriously, they're good people even if they are mostly Kiwis. Once again, just kidding, all the Kiwis I've met here been fantastic people.

A few weeks ago I put out a help beacon on Couchsurfing to see if anyone wanted to participate in the Russell Birdman Festival. I got a few responses and the week before the Festival I drove up to Whangarei and worked on my entry with 4 other people. I stayed with a couple, Karen and Colin and we worked to create the entries with another couple, Aaron and Morgan. We watched a lot of world cup and got up at ridiculous wee morning hours to see the games. We constructed our giant kites out of bamboo which the guys cut down from a nearby park and old curtains which Morgan sewed to the bamboo structures. Then we all took turns making little bows to attach as the tail and painted the backs of both kites.

Then the next week rolled around and I carpooled up with an Australian named Michael and an American named Cassie. We watched the All Blacks test match and tried to figure out the rules of rugby, no luck, but at least it's more interesting than cricket.

The next morning we left for the Festival. We were unable to partake in any of the other activities for one reason or another: the spaghetti eating contest, dinghy boat race, bbq cook off and the like. It was sad, but Aaron and I did get to jump in the water in our matching North Power jump suits, courtesy of Colin who actually works for North Power. I also made a red mask that looked kind of like the mask in the Princess Bride.

We ran down the wharf to the song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" by the Beatles. An appropriate choice considering Aaron and I both had giant people sized kites. Though I suppose our matching blue and orange jump suits and my red face mask didn't really match the kite idea.

One website I found said that in winter the ocean water temperature in Russell is a balmy 18 C. So the water was the type to knock the wind out of you on contact. So you run down the wharf, jump in the water, jettison your entry so you don't drown and then rescue swimmers make sure you make it to the pick up boats which swoop in quickly. Fun times in Russell.

For more Russell Birdman Festival info, you can see their website http://www.russellbirdman.co.nz/

I went to the Mustang Saloon with a new friend to celebrate the 4th of July with other expats. I don't know why but I really enjoyed meeting up with other Americans to celebrate our Independence. They had a US menu that day and I had nachos.

Leigh, Seiger, Megan (Sascha's girlfriend and Sascha is Seiger's son) and I went to the the theaters to see Inception. What an awesome movie. We saw it on opening night and there were only about 3 or 4 other people in the theater. Small towns rock!

Now I'm in the Northland right now on a road trip with Leigh. We stopped by Tane Mahuta which is the largest Kauri tree and it's supposedly about 2000 years old. So this seedling was hanging out with Jesus.

Then we went to the Wairere Boulders. A nifty place with sweet as volcanic boulders and lots of moss. There was a no entry area that Leigh wouldn't let me go into. Some of the formations (cuts) were have been caused by acidic soil from kauri trees that used to grow in the forest. Weird, but sweet geological formations.

Tomorrow we're going sandboarding i.e. hurling ourselves down sand dunes on top of boogie board. Then we're driving up to the tip of Cape Reinga to watch the Tasman Sea meet the Pacific Ocean, check out the light house and find the 800 year old Pohutukawa tree which is the leaping off point for spirits in Maori Legend.

I'll try to keep up with this a bit more as I'm approaching my exodus from the country. I'm leaving Aug 22, but on Aug 7 I'll be joined by my buddy, Emily and then Aug 12, Jon will arrive and we'll be driving off into the New Zealand sunset. No really, we're going on a whirlwind tour of the North Island complete with a rugby game and glow worms.

Also I went gambling at the Sky Tower in Auckland. I played for 20 minutes with $10 dollars and ended up winning $115. Then I went back the next day and lost $440. I've learned my lesson and I'm not going to gamble anymore. I've been berated many times by many different people.

Cheers until next time,

Molly

Also I'm on "M" in my iTunes list by artist. I'd like to thank my tenacity.