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Spray flew off the crashing Tasman Sea
waves along
Ninety Mile Beach, Northland New Zealand.
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Drive your non-four drive
vehicle across New Zealand’s “Ninety Mile
Beach” when most visitors are afraid to see it any other way besides a tour
bus?!?
Yup!
What could be cooler?
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Dunes, Ninety Mile Beach, Northland,
New Zealand.
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Ninety mile beach is
actually an 88 kilometer (55 mile) drivable stretch, nearly the northernmost beach of
New Zealand’s North Island. On a
nice fall day, a convoy of six
tour busses take the route, leaving Kaitaia at 9 am, returning at 5 pm for
$50 NZD/adult. That’s a whole day
for what’s really a two hour drive on a hard-packed sand beach.
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Bus passengers don’t get to walk this
panoramic Bluff viewpoint on Ninety Mile Beach.
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Another cool view off the Bluff trail, Ninety Mile Beach,
Northland, New Zealand.
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Yes, there are cars that do
get stuck, but that’s because either they weren’t sufficiently prepared, or they
just don’t know how to drive the terrain.
If our gas-efficient, but
not-that-peppy 2-wheel drive 1996 Toyota wagon with over 250km could make it,
we figure most cars can if their drivers know what they’re doing. I must give credit to Scott Cook, author of the excellent Northland
guidebook “New Zealand Frenzy North”* for providing the intel, and Wayne for
his typical superb driving.
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Patterns across the sand, Bluff, Ninety Mile Beach,
Northland, New Zealand.
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“Bring: tide book, planks and shovel,” he
advises; the latter two for the other
drivers who don’t know what they’re doing. Wayne took heed, and adroitly planned our arrival at the
Waipapakauri entry point for two hours before low tide. That gave us a leisurely drive for our exit
out Te Paki. From there, we
planned to proceed toward Cape Reinga, then camp nearby afterward.
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Tour bus, one of six that convoyed together
on
Northland’s Ninety Mile Beach. New Zealand.
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We delayed our trip a day to
take advantage of an awesome fall weather forecast – and luckily – it was even
nicer than we expected!
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Tourists, sharing Ninety Mile Beach
with each other.
Northland, New
Zealand.
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We weren’t sure when we saw
the sign to Ninety Mile Beach if we took the right exit, as the sign
was also to a Holiday Park campground. The beach was a ways off Highway 1, but eventually we got
there and it was obvious that was the correct entrance. We carried on despite the
at-your-own-risk warning signs and the “4-wheel drive recommended.”
Then, there was nothing
between our car and the waves but the broad, flat stretch of hard-packed sand
we drove atop. Short dunes and
beyond them, scrub, framed the other side of our horizon. There were a few other cars along the
drive; less than a dozen the whole journey, including a few fisherman and some
surfers.
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Wayne inimitably demonstrates another
thing you can’t do
on the Ninety Mile Beach bus tour.
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We stopped at a random point
to briefly explore the dunes and watch the hypnotically pounding foam-crested
waves of the Tasman sea. There we
enjoyed a nice chat with Kit, a cyclist from Auckland who smartly sped along on
his fat-tired two-wheeler, but took a few minutes out for us to commemorate his
trip with a photo of him.
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Te Paki stream seemed relatively benign
… initially.
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"New Zealand Frenzy" coached us to slow a
bit for the stream crossings, angling across. We scoffed at the stream crossings… until later.
Lunchtime found us at the
Bluff, a short trail leading across its rocky outcrop, providing the perfect
vista to watch near metronomic surf-curl waved arcing to the North.
A little later there was no
doubt we were crossing a stream, rather than just a wet spot. Windows closed. Wipers flew. Whew!
Near the final Te turnoff,
the tour busses lumbered onto the beach, disgorging their passengers. They ambled out, stretching their legs,
taking in the view, and snapping selfies.
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Then we got a bit less cocky with our
low-slung two-wheel drive
wagon as Te Paki stream continued, broadening and
deepening.
We realized we weren’t
crossing it as much as we were
driving it. Yikes!
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The last bus emerged from Te
Paki stream, showily brushing its tires into the surf, slender rooster tails
exiting its tires, like a big dog shaking off after a swim.
We followed its wake up Te
Paki stream. We crossed onto
sand, Then into the stream. Then on sand. Then back into the stream, which kept going and going and
going. We flipped though “New
Zealand Frenzy,” nervously. “Is
this the right way?” we wondered.
Yup, 3.5 km up the stream said our trusty book, further confirmed by a
mom taking pix of her young ‘uns, who were sand-surfing down the slopes in one
of the few dry spot.
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Not the deepest, but one of the deeper
parts of Te Paki stream,
Northland, New Zealand, Ninety Mile Beach entry / exit
point.
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Then, to our great relief,
we got there; Te Paki Dunes, at last leaving the stream behind. I thanked Wayne for his fabulous
driving. “If I wasn’t wearing
jeans,” he admitted, “My sphincter was so tight it might worn a hole in the
seat.”
At Te Paki Dunes we watched
kids of all ages boarding down the sandy slopes, including a rather rotund guy
about our age, cooly sipping his stubby as he zipped his way down.
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Whew! Arrival! Te
Paki Dunes, beautifully framed between pampas grass and cabbage palms.
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We regretted not allotting more
time for the area. We’d love to
explore the dunes, find a place we could camp and see the moonrise over the
massive golden sand hillocks, alternately unblemished and wildly wavy. With enough time, we’d probably even
consider popping the few $ it took to try out a board and give ourselves a slip
and slide. Even the wipe-outs
looked gentle.
Alas in our, it’s
Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium pace, we left all too soon. It was already approaching later
afternoon. Cape Reinga and finding
a campsite before dark awaited.
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Wayne points to the “Four wheel drive
recommended” portion of the sign at
Te Paki Stream, one of the two primary
entry points for the Ninety Mile
Beach Drive.
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Location LocationWe're back on a pole mooring in Whangarei’s Town Basin Marina (S35.43.412 E174.19.539), just returned from our brief road trip up to Cape Reinga, the Northernmost point of New Zealand's North Island. Quite likely we'll leave Whangarei by month's end.
Sailing by the NumbersLast year, between December 2014 and November 2015 we sailed from Florida USA to New Zealand, over 10,000 miles. Current plan's to resume cruising this May. First stop's Fiji, 1170 nm. We plan to sell our boat in Australia, likely around February and return to work - somewhere.
*If you or someone you love who loves outdoor adventures is planning a trip to New Zealand, I highly recommend Scott Cook's "New Zealand Frenzy" guide books. You will still need to use them in conjunction with a good map or you'll miss some of the seriously good stuff he suggests. We didn't, and we did. We hope to return....
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