My first night of beach camping at Rarawa Beach went ok, however, having not planned to camp in the car I had no provisions for how to make myself coffee that next morning. It was a really really good thing there was a nice beach sunrise nearby to wake me up.
I woke up at first light and got there in time to even catch the moon before the sun made its appearance.
Not a bad way at all to wake up and especially not a bad way to spend Easter morning! But I am a pretty caffeine dependent person so it wasn't long before I was off in search of somewhere to get a cup of coffee. And now realizing that it was Easter Sunday morning in the far far North, I knew this was going to quite possibly be a long search.
As I was leaving I did see Turkeys! I have hardly seen any turkey in the grocery store at all so this at least proved to me that they exist in New Zealand. There is a little hope I can find one for Thanksgiving later this year.
As I continued back south I found the "northern most tavern in New Zealand" which also claimed to have a café.... however, they were no open. The search continued. I next made it to Pukenui but found that the café there while it said it was suppose to be open... wasn't. So by then I was to the point where I wanted to cut over to 90 Mile Beach and travel along the "costal road" that was shown on my trusty little map. I would just have to ignore my caffeine cravings for a little while.
After about 20 minutes of what we would call dirt roads at best here I reached 90 Mile Beach in all of its wide open west coast glory. Now I had been told quite a lot about driving on 90 Mile Beach and all about how locals use it as a road but tourists just use it to lose rental cars on. I had promised not to drive on the beach at all!
After all, this dune buggy type vehicle was not what I was driving and that was what I thought of when I think of what should drive on a beach! But when I got there and saw car after car pulling onto the beach, I realized I was apparently not thinking at all like most people. I saw people with little tiny rental cars, even a convertible whip out onto the sand and head off into the mist. I in contrast, parked Bumble Bee off side of the road prior to reaching the beach and walked out on the beach. This got me a lot of odd looks! But I found this nice little jelly fish while I was there!
What I didn't find was the "costal road" that was on the map. I found it rather confusing that they had listed a separate road a little ways off the beach when clearly what they really were referring to is the "road" that was the beach. As I had no intention of breaking my promise I headed back to good old Highway 1.
Along the way back I was able to snap a picture of some of the wild horses that live near 90 Mile Beach on the North Island. I wasn't able to get very close and they did not stick around very long once they spotted me.
Back on the main highway I stopped in at The Ancient Kauri Kingdom where I was very pleased to find a good coffee and a nice scone. I also was pretty amazed at some of the larger Kauri pieces that they had including this spiral staircase contained completely in one tree trunk.
From there I took a road that reminded me of home out to Ahipara at the base of 90 Mile Beach. Funny the way that you see signs that remind you of home all over the world!
Sadly the weather wasn't working in my favor and the beach was a little chilly that morning in Ahipara. That wasn't stopping the locals from coming out and enjoying some wind surfing though!
At this point I decided I had lucked out with weather most of the weekend and had been able to see almost everything I had on my list. I headed south but wasn't too disappointed that the rain picked up and didn't let up much until I had made it all the way back to Mungatapere. The weekend was over 400 miles of driving, countless one lane bridges, dozens of gorgeous beaches and quite an overall amazing time.
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