Cape Reigna & Waipoua Forest

It is a long way to go and see a light house at Cape Reigna, but I'm glad we made the trip to the top of New Zealand.  The stars alone last night were spectacular, but once you get up to Cape Reigna it's like being on the edge of the World.  The State Highway ends and the Pacific Ocean is all that is left in front of you.  The Maori consider Cape Reigna as the jumping-off point for souls as the depart on the journey to their spiritual homeland.  As we wandered down to the tip of Cape, i found a daisy on the path and let it float in to the wind remembering those I love at peace in their spiritual homeland whilst watching the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean collide.

We hit the road, back the way we came down the long thin peninsula back down SH1 stopping off at the giant Te Paki Sand Dunes and 90 mile beach.  The sand dunes were more like mountains and it felt like we had just been transported to the sahara desert!  After assessing the stream we would need to cross to make our way to the beach highway, we decided we would be safer sticking to the road, especially as we had no idea if it was high tide or not!

We continued our journey west down the Kauri coast, which is much less populated than the east coast, climbing steep sided gorges and dense rainforest.  It was very strange driving along, looking out of the window we could have been driving down the A5 back at home, then you drive up a steep sided gorge and through a rain forest and it's a startling reminder of what a unique landscape NZ has! We stopped at the Waipoua Forest home to New Zealand's largest and and oldest Kauri tree - Tane Mahuta.  Standing at 51m high and a girth of 13.8 metre - it the biggest, tallest and fattest tree I have seen!