Northland

Have to start this blogentry with some serious news. My dear eighties sunglasses - bought at Paddys market in Sydney for 9 dollars - are broken! Finito - kaput - ødelagt! I will surely miss them - I already have many times. Eventhough they were weird in appearance they were some primo sunglasses.

On the upside: I finally got to see a face i knew again.!!!!! Visiting Alexandra in Auckland. First thing to do? Make homemade tortillapizza! Yummy:) Second thing to do? Pick rubbish in Ambury Park! Who can complain when the sun is shining and you get an easteregg when youre done? And they had some animals! Goats, birds and pigs were the ones we saw :) Since Alex is the most serious student in the universe, and I still had some undiscovered territory left in NZ, i left her on Monday and drove up to Whangarei. Whangarei didnt have too many exciting activities or grand sights, but they had some cool stuff to take photos of;) These are actually MUCH bigger than me! Theyre everywhere in NZ, often alongside the road, and someone must have given them a familypack of fertilizer, cause we dont get them this big in Norway! After two days in Whangarei, I drove to Paihia. Nice little beachcity in the Bay of Islands. I was booked onto a dolphintour, where I was gonna swim with dolphins:) But when I got to the wharf the tour was cancelled because of rough sea! Got some of my money back and got booked onto a different tour. Dolphincruise and Hole In The Rock sightseeing:) We set off from the bay, and just as we could start spotting the rock that was supposed to have a hole in it - the skipper turned around. "Sorry folks, the sea is too rough, we wont go out to the Rock today." Talk about bad luck for me! Got to see a cool sailboat though... AND, we found some dolphins on the way back. They were jumping and playing and showing off for all the tourists, but I couldnt get any photos of one in the air.. Thursday was an early start. A bus picked me up at 7:15. Cape Reinga was the target with different stops on the way there and back. First was Puketi Kauri Forest. The threes here can be 2000 year old! They were massive. The one you can see in the photo fell down many many years ago, it was probably 1,5 meter wide! Queen Elizabeth came to visit this forest in 1990 and for that they built a walkway and put red carpets on it. They didnt want the queen to get her shoes dirty of course! After some breakfast at Taipa Beach we set off towards Cape Reinga. The lighthouse is on a cliff right above the ocean, and you can actually see a change where The Tasman Sea collide with The Pacific Ocean! Normally the Pacific Ocean is much calmer than the Tasman. My guide told us it was because the Aussies always kept stirring up trouble.. Høh høh høh. 5700km. . Thats how far Ill fly next Saturday :) In Maori Religion Cape Reinga is where the souls travel to when someone has died. They come to the cliff down there and the old tree hanging off it is where they plunge out to fly home to the Pacific Islands - where the first Maori settlers came from. If they have been good they will get wings and fly back, if not theyll fall into the ocean and get eaten by a seamonster! Next stop was some sanddunes. SANDBOARDING:) I had though it would be like snowboarding - you'd try and stand on a board down the dunes. NOO, youre supposed to land on your stomach down the dunes, and at the bottom lift the board up so that you slide over the shallow waters.. I tried it ones - kind of made it. Second time I tried it from the suicide hill - got soaking wet and sand up my shorts! =) Gave the rest of the group a good laugh! And we got to try and stand on them after some nagging to the busdriver. Much easier. Could jump off the bloody board before i hit the water! View from the top. Just lay down of your stomach and glide down:) The road from here might not look like a road, but it is actually a state Highway. 90 Mile Beach! Just had to drive through a minor river to get to it ;) One hour of driving on a beach and trying to hit the seagulls! Second last stop was Ancient Kauri Kindom. Could see a ancient Gekko caught in Kaurigum and a hollowed out Kauri tree made into a staircase!

After that we had the best Fush'N'Chups Ive had in NZ. The fish was freshly caught that day - perfect end of a cool day! OR, the best part was being able to make someone believe my Aprils Fools Day Joke! You know who you are ;)