Misadventures

So Doug and I drove down from Auckland on Saturday morning, camped out at Okere falls, and Doug put in a couple of runs on the Wairoa on Sunday. No footage or pics I'm afraid due to some technical camera issues (Doug forgot it), but thanks to the many friendly reminders from the rest of the boaters on the water, Doug successfully managed to avoid the undercut that he swam into last week and got away with just a couple of rolls on his runs. Meanwhile, I ran the shuttle for our group, and once word got out that I was the shuttle bitch, other boaters unknown to me would run up and throw their keys at me and get me to run their shuttles too. A nice way to get to know people from the rest of the scene!

So that's the last two days in a nutshell. We stayed last night at Rotorua Thermal Springs, the camp site we stayed at in our first night in the van, and today we have nothing much planned apart from some washing and a visit to Leigh's mum and dad up on Tilsley Street. On with the montage!

We were in the far north when this photo was taken. We'd got back from a trip up to Cape Reinga the night before, had packed up and left the camp site and got about 10 clicks down the road before running out of fuel. Bugger! It wasn't a total surprise. When the fuel gauge has hit empty about 100 clicks in the past, then gone past it to hit the stop about 20 clicks before the camp site, you've got a pretty good inkling that you're running low on gas the next morning. Now we can usually run the 60 litre tank down to the point where we have to fill up with 58 litres or so, but there was no such luck on that day. The petrol station was still 40 clicks south and faced with a long hitch hike, we decided to ask a farmer to come out and give us some premium rate gas. 

The previous day, and about 60 clicks north of the camp site (probably with a couple of litres left in the tank) we parked up and explored New Zealand's largest sand dunes. It was windy, sandy and steep. Doug fell over a lot. Not much more to say.

Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of New Zealand is where the Tasman Sea to the west meets the Pacific Ocean to the east with some seas that look spectacular even from our viewpoint 130 metres up. You can see a big tidal rip off the west end of the cape and the lighthouse on the peak of the headland at the end of the path. The cape lies at the end of a long peninsular with ninety mile beach (which you can drive along in a 4x4) to the west and wild coast to the east. 

One last photo JUST BECAUSE I CAN! 22 hours travel, 9,700 nautical miles away. New Zealand dude! More montage posts soon.

Catch you all soon,

Sam and Doug