Made the Best of It

Well, Jesse and I are back in Warkworth. We left on Tuesday to go up to Liz & Geoff's vacation home (bach) in Rawene. Rawene is a small town on the north west coast that was actually the 3rd European establishment. We stopped and picked up the keys and made a copy because our plan was to drive back a different way. A cut key cost 8 dollars here. We had to make 2 of them. We arrived in Rawene in the late afternoon and had a bit of trouble finding the house. When we got there and made our way down to the bach it was suddenly apparent that we would not be staying there as it literally smelled like poo. Long story short, a pipe had somehow ruptured and the place has actually been put on a condemed list (that happened yesterday). We left and found an I site (information) and got some info on a mobile park.
We ended up staying at the Rawene motor park in a cabin that night. Jesse and I played caps and had a nice time drinking a bit of wine and watching the beautiful sun set over the bay and the mountains. There were an older couple there that were kiwi's traveling around for a few weeks and they were really nice.
We went to the Four Square (grocery store) and on the way we passed a group of teenager toughs and they yelled at us and called us 'White People'. We didn't feel really comfortable being in town after that. I mean, for the first time in our lives we were on the receiving end of the slur. Weird.
All in all though we had a fun time in our cabin and we got up early and got the hell out of Rawene! Took the ferry across and discovered that Jesse is a bit closterphobic and was worried about the ferry going down and us being trapped in the car unable to get out. We arrived on the other side 20 minutes later unscathed. There was a huge ferry in Tonga that sank and nearly everyone on board died. That was a few weeks ago and I think he may have been thinking about that.
Made our way up to 90 mile beach and actually drove the car onto the beach and sat there for a while. I snapped a photo and was ready to get the heck of the beach. Didn't feel natural to be able to drive a car on the sand. The sand was as stiff as concrete. People actually drive their vehicles all the way up the beach. I prefer the road!!
We made it to Cape Reinga, which is the northermost part of NZ that you can drive to. As we didn't bring any of our camping gear with us we couldn't really do any tenting or anything. Lesson learned, next time we leave for any reason we bring all of our tenting gear with. The Cape is cool. You can actually see the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meeting. They come together and there are really cool waves and the color is a spectacular bluish green that really is choice. There is a lighthouse there and I was expecting it to be huge and of course it wasn't. Jesse, the voice of reality, said that it was smaller than the ones in New England because it was much newer and the technology had gotten better. Makes sense. I am proud to have such a smart ass for a husband! No, but seriously...sometimes he reminds me of a Skip junior!!
We saw some awesome sand dunes that we had to run around on near the cape as well. We played in the sand and then ate our lunch. As we were sitting there eating our lunch a huge tour bus came flying down the road and drove straight onto the water and crossed it and continued driving down the beach. There were quite a few of tour buses at the cape but besides that we haven't really noticed tourism too much yet. I think that is because it is still only Spring.
We spent the second night in Paihia. It is a tourist town on the bay in The Bay of Islands. Slept at a hostel and treated ourselves to pizza. The next morning we went out and tried to kayak in the ocean. It was a really cloudy day and the waves were really big. The kayaks were more like a lake kayak than an ocean one. They were short and stubby and they had holes in the seats and so you were destined to get wet no matter what. We were out for maybe15 minutes and then we gave up soaking wet and cold. We will try again with proper equipment=:)
After the kayaking adventure we drove back to Kerikeri and met up with the couple that had been working at the lodge when we first arrived. They were working at another hotel and it was a really swanky place. It was very nice to go somewhere and know someone. They (Rob and Dallas) are really nice people and it was a fun visit.
Today we went to the bank and opened our first joint checking account as a married couple. That was exciting!! We have exactly 0.00 dollars in it. Not so exciting any more is it? Is it?? Just kidding, it's still exciting.
All is well here. We will update prior to leaving Warkworth, which is happening on Monday morning. We are going to pick up our friend Jeff from the airport. Excited to see him!
Beverly