My last trip in New Zealand! 😦 Extremely sad, but it was incredible! 😀
June 9th –
Kicked the trip off amazingly with a train ride with my pal and fellow TEAN’er, Evan from Wellington to Auckland! We left at 7:55 am and arrived around 7 pm. Yeah, it was a long ride but the view of the country side was worth it! Plus, now I can say I have taken a train through the North Island of New Zealand 😀
When we arrived in Auckland we crashed with a fellow NZ TEAN’er and grabbed some Sals pizza for dinner (NY style pizza and the best easily the best I have had in NZ).
June 10th –
Evan and I spent this morning and part of the afternoon walking aroudn the city visiting a lot of the spots our whole group came during the TEAN NZ Orientation. It was quite the full-circle experience.
We visited the Auckland SkyTower and the waterfront to take some some pictures of the Auckland Bridge. At the skytower we tried to get into the casino but it was of a much higher class than us as Evan got kicked out due to their dress code (he had some holes in his jeans). It was quite the comical experience!
While walking through the city we passed by a movie/music store where I saw a huge advertisement for The Hobbit. Obviously I had to go in and just to my luck, the movie was on sale so of course I had to buy it! How many people back in the USA can say they own a copy of The Hobbit that they got straight from New Zealand?!
In the evening we caught our bus to Whangarei – which is in the Northland. Once there we found our hostel and chilled for the evening since the town was pretty shut down.
June 11th –
Woke up and got ready to go rent our car and head up to Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach for the day. The plan was to leave really early…but we ran into a HUGE problem at the car rental place.
- The woman working was probably one of the ruddiest people on Earth
- You need to be 21 to rent a car in NZ and it turns out Evans license had expired so it was a no go to get the car….again, womp. womp.
Devastated that our plans for the day (and huge portion of the trip) were possibly a no go – we decided to walk to the local i-Site center to see what our options were.
The options were simply one: Join a tour group that was about to head out. The total cost for us to ride: $500 NZD!!! Wayyy out of our price range so that was a huge NOPE!
Disappointment and defeat hit hard. We left the i-Site center to go walk around and figure out our next move. After probably 20 minutes a light bulb clicked in my head: We only went to one rental car place…perhaps there was another one that would allow a person under 21 to rent a car…
So we made our way back to the i-Site center, walked over to the counter and practically pleaded with the two very sympathetic women behind the desk and explained our situation. The emotion and fear of not getting to Cape Reinga was practically leaping off our faces. By god these two women made our entire day! We clearly were not your average teenage type kids and they saw that. One of the women called up a local rental place and completely explained our situation… it took some convincing on her part but the deal was made and she hung up the phone. Not even ten minutes later and the rental place was outside the i-Site ready to pick us up so we could go sign the necessary paperwork to rent the car. Not only did they allow me to rent as under 21, but they gave us a killer deal!! Seriously, the nicest people on the planet.
Only a few hours behind our planned time to leave the area we finished signing the forms, hopped in our car (which we ended up nicknaming Ferris) and were off!
The trip one way was roughly 270 kilometers (~168 miles) full of stunning landscape and ocean scenery with hardly anyone on the road! At first driving on the other side of the road and car was weird but it became natural within the first ten minutes.
On our way to Cape Reinga we stopped for lunch in Kaitaia. Made another stop to check out 90 Mile Beach (which is a total lie as it’s not really 90 Miles), and another stop the Te Pika Giant Sand Dunes. Literally just huge piles of sand!
Driving all the way up St. Highway 1 to the very end we reached our destination, Cape Reinga. This is the northernmost point of the North Island, thus the northernmost point of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is the place where the Tasman Sea meets and collides with the Pacific Ocean. Describing these two forces of water come together is near impossible! One one side the water was dark – on the other it was light- and they just met perfectly in the middle forming tidal currents out in the ocean.
Overall, this place is incredible – honestly something like you’d see in a fairy tale. It had that magical/mystical atmosphere to it. Check out some pictures we took below:
Cape Reinga is also the place where the Maori (natives to NZ) believe that the spirits of the dead come to enter the underworld. [Actually at the tip behind Evan in the picture below….pretty neat right?!] The whole story and cultural history about the place is quite incredible!!
After spending a decent amount of time at the Cape we packed up our things and drove the 270 km back to Whangarei and to the car rental place that generously allowed us to have Ferris for the day.
June 12th –
Bye-Bye Northland! We woke up, packed, then went to drop of car and caught our bus back to Auckland where I was able to snap this picture of the Auckland city skyline:
In Auckland we had a bus change and headed off east to Whitianga in the Coromandel Peninsula. The ride to Whitianga was just like any other ride I have taken in NZ, absolutely beautiful.
We arrived in time to check into our hostel, The Cats Pyjamas, which is run by Trish, an elderly woman who reminded me of a great aunt figure.
After getting ourselves settled in the hostel we walked down to the beach to catch the remaining daylight and then went to the store to grab some food for dinner and breakfast.
June 13th –
Today was another day where we had to rent a car for our intended trip. *FINGERS CROSSED*
Luck was on our side as the car rental place had no problem that 
I was under 21 at the time. After filling out the necessary paperwork we hoped in our car (this time nicknamed Betty White) and made our way along the country side with the sun shining, windows rolled down, and music blaring! First stop: Cathedral Cove.
Cathedral Cove as incredible! Finally we were able to get back in our swim suits and enjoy the amazing blue water. Cathedral Cove consists of two beaches that are separated by a tunnel through the this really big rock. There was hardly anyone on the one beach and as soon as we went through the tunnel and crossed the shallow water we ended up on the other beach and had it pretty much to ourselves!
We stayed at the cove for a few hours before making our way back to the car and drove to Hot Water Beach. 
Not going to lie, the hot water beach was a little disappointing. Granted it might have been better if we actually had our own shovel to dig ourselves our own hot pool but all we really wanted to do was see it. The hot water beach is an area 
where you dig your own hole in the sand and have the ocean water come in to create a pool; the ground is extremely hot and essentially heats the water so that you have your own hot pool. Although we didn’t have a shovel we were able to burry our feet down deep enough to feel the scorching hot earth beneath the ice cold water.
After checking out the hot water beach we made our way to Cooks Beach to catch the sunset and then headed back to the hostel for the night.
We checked out of The Cat’s Pyjamas (which wasn’t exactly the ‘cat’s pajamas’ but it wasn’t the worst hostel I’ve stayed at) and returned the rental car before catching our bus to Ngatea and then connecting bus to Taupo. We arrived in Taupo sometime in the early afternoon but our bus didn’t leave Taupo until the early morning hours…so there was no point in getting a place to stay. Rather, we hung out around the town and chilled at Mickey D’s until our bus came to take us back to Palmerston North. Thank you M-D’s for your continuous hours and gracious Wi-Fi.
Sadly I don’t have any more time (or money) to have another adventure in NZ besides my adventure from Palmy to Auckland to catch my flight back to the U.S.A. I had an incredible time these past 5 months in NZ! This was my last adventure this time around…I’ll be back one day, no doubt about that!
‘Til next time! -Brad
Emerson Was Right 
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