January 28, 2013
There are a couple of Northland spots on the main tourist circuit and one of those is the famous Ninety Mile Beach. It’s on the west side of the Aupouri Peninsula, which sticks out of the top of New Zealand like a thumb sticks out of a hitchhiker’s hand. The beach is actually 64-miles long, but the name Ninety Mile Beach just has a more zing to it.
This beach is famous for two things: the fact that you can drive on it (it’s actually part of New Zealand’s national highway system) and its large sand dunes. I’d actually seen this place on travel shows and wasn’t sure I needed to see it in person, but everyone seemed to think it was worthwhile so we figured we’d give it a look.
The confusing part is how exactly to do this excursion. It’s neat to be able to drive on a beach, but it’s not good for the underside of your car. One guidebook insisted it’s no longer even legal to take a private car on the beach, but people we knew had certainly done it. All the guidebooks warned that cars get stuck all the time. Thus, there are a lot of tour buses making day trips there out of nearby Pahia. We picked up several brochures for bus tours which included various sights along the way, but no one trip included everything.
Between the brochures and my tour books, I had a lot of really vague information, too vague to decide what was worthwhile to see and what wasn’t, and for things we did want to see, information on how to get there, how long it takes, whether there are places to stay or eat, whether you can walk to anything, where exactly things are, etc., was pretty scarce. It was almost enough to throw up our hands and give up, but everyone who went urged us to go; so we’d go see the sand dunes already!
After doing a little more research, I decided we should focus more on enjoying some of the sights and less on the novelty of driving on the beach so we could take our own car. The plan was to stay one night partway up the peninsula, drive to see the sights there, then spend the next night at the base of it. Staying at the base of the peninsula is the easy as there’s a town there, but the peninsula itself is sparsely populated and accommodations are scarce. Rich managed to find us a bed and no-breakfast sort of place on wotif.com, a great hotel-finding website for New Zealand and Australia.
We left early on a sunny morning, and the drive north was lovely, especially the 30-minute drive through the hills of the Raetea Forest, a tree fern forest against a backdrop of rainforest. One of the best things about New Zealand road trips is there are always beautiful surprises.
Soon enough, we were at McDonald’s in the not-so-pretty town of Kaitaia having scorcher peri peris for an early lunch (chicken sandwiches with a spicy Portuguese sauce called peri peri sauce) before turning north and driving up the long peninsula. We opted for the main (solid ground) highway, not the beach “highway.”
Our first stop was the Giant Kauri Kingdom. With all my information, I still wasn’t clear on exactly what this was. When I direct Rich to pull over for something, he likes to ask, “What is this?” Today I had to say, “I don’t know, but there’s a big log and stuff.” “Yes, but why are we stopping here?” Again, I had to say, “I don’t know, but everybody else does. Look, we can park right there and check it out!” Rich has less natural curiosity about these things than I do. He has to be convinced to stop, whereas I like to make sure I’m not missing anything. Sometimes I have to make up for my lack of knowledge with enthusiasm.
The Giant Kauri Kingdom turned out to be a glorified gift shop and cafe, worth a stop to see the staircase to the second floor art gallery that’s carved inside a giant kauri tree log. After using some willpower to resist getting cute trinkets, we bought some coffee drinks and headed on.
The next option was the Gumdiggers Park. Instead of trying to describe it, I’ll post a picture of the ad, because no matter how many times I read it, I still don’t get it. The deciding factor in my not mustering up the enthusiasm to get us over there was a rather hefty entry fee.
The drive became beautiful again as we headed north. This peninsula feels wild and windswept, a strip of land about six miles wide between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea. Between coastlines, sheep and cows graze on gently rolling hills amid copses of large trees, probably planted as windbreaks. It reminded me a lot of Pt. Reyes or Bodega Bay in Northern California.
Our next quest was to find our bed and no-breakfast (but hey, there’s instant coffee!) accommodations. We drove down a about 3 miles of dirt road to another dirt road then finally found a small sign on a gate. We opened the gate and headed down the driveway to a small ranch house. Is this it?
We didn’t want to exit the car until we were sure the dogs were friendly (this is New Zealand and there are always dogs). The owner ambled out and directed us to a cottage behind the house. It was rustic, and I could see our mattress echoed the theme of the rolling hills outside, but it was clean and the owners were nice and had lots of helpful advice. It’s not like there’s a lot of choice for places to stay around here; so this would do. It was still early; so we dropped off our bags and headed up the peninsula to Cape Reinga, our next stop. –Cyndi
