Mom and I took the very long and windy drive up to scenic Cape Reinga. This is the most northern tip of New Zealand. It's a very spiritual place for the Maori, and its easy to see why when you arrive. This is the place that is believed to be the sending grounds for their spirits.
As I write this now I am using a French computer, all of the letters are mixed around so forgive any mistypes. Everything is underlined in the angry red of error since I'm writing in English anyway.
The entrance to the walk at Cape Reinga.
Te Werahi Beach.
This is your view to the left as you walk along the trail to the tip of New Zealand.
The coast east of New Zealand's tip.
The spiritual sending grounds of the Maori.
This is the spot where the spirits go when they die. There is a spring at the bottom of the tree you see that juts off the side of the rock. The spirits descend down the roots of this tree to the bottom where there is a spring of water. In order to pass into the afterlife, the spirit must drink from this spring.
The lighthouse.
Mom and I... a short stroll from LA.
Mom and I :)
This is where the Pacific Ocean of the east meets the Tasman Sea of the west. The Maori people believe it to be representative of male and female coming together to create life. Check it out, you can actually see the waters joining!
Mom and I went sailing around the Bay of Islands today. There are 150 islands scattered all around the area. It was the perfect day, sunny and warm. OK well a real sailor would say it was almost perfect, because there was no wind in the morning, it picked up by lunch though. The boat we sailed was called the Lion New Zealand, it's an 80 ft maxi yacht buildt the year I was born for the Americas Cup, which it won the year after its creation. It went on to do an around the world sail competition and came in 2nd place. It's beautiful! And I wasn't just posing for that picture, I sailed it!
Sailing is awesome :)
I was a regular grinder! I had such a fun time! I got to grind, steer, tack, and rig it!
Mom and I at the prow.
Here's a smaller boat we raced...
I love this picture of Mom. I was going to take her picture,
then the boat rocked suddenly, we both moved, and the picture became candid, beautiful!
I even got to steer when it we did a full tack,
it was pretty tough holding this 110ft tall sailboat against a wind at full tack!
This boat can lean over so far that the railing submerges... hold on!
On the Lion.
Here's some pictures of the islands.
This is an island we stopped at for lunch, kayaking, snorkeling, and hiking.
Mom and I swam to the island and back, it was so much fun.
We just stayed in the water super long because it was so warm.
From the top of the island.
There's the boat from the top of the island,
I swam out to is island you see on the left, once I got there though the ground was covered with sharp barnacles and shells so I just looked at it up close and swam back, ha!
We saw so many dolphins this day! They were even jumping out of the water 3 at a time all together.
Dolphins!
Day's end, thanks Lion!
This day was full of much sunbathing, sailing, snorkelling, swimming, and hiking.
One of the 150 islands at the Bay of Islands, New Zealand
Mom and I packed up our bags, picked up a rental car, and hit the road for Paihia on Sunday the 26th. Paihiais a cute little coastal town in northern New Zealand on the Bay of Islands. But FIRST.... some Jo Jo / Caleb side notes:
Jo Jo's drawings... we're not sure if we should be scared or not.
Joelle's other artwork.
Time to say goodbye to my little flower-loving blueberry face-painter.
Play time at the park.
Caleb a month old!
Serena says his frog belly is the perfect diaper cork. LOL!
He's grown 2 ounces a day since birth... well on his way to chunker status.
He's now 150% of his birth weight.
We're gonna miss these little guys! Oh ya, and Serena and Riley too ;p
OK back to the trip.
Notes about the roads: Just like Thailand and Bali, in New Zealand people drive on the left side of the road. Since I've been seeing and doing this for a while now, I'm already comfortable driving this way. However, there are a few things that are different. First of all, if you want to turn left, and someone coming the other direction wants to turn right (across traffic), they have the right of way, not you. I definitely either cut someone off or sat staring at someone when it was my right of way once or twice getting used to this rule. It's the USA equivalent of not having the right of way to make a right hand turn if someone from the other side wants to turn left onto the same road. Weird huh. There's also round-a-bouts everywhere, some with 2 lanes in them which can be confusing.
When you're not used to driving on the left hand side of the road, it can be easy to veer off the left.
This is either a drunken Kiwi... or a new left-side driver.
(cough... Mom) Who said that... what?
We stopped at some cool places on the way up the coast,
this was at an ancient kauri wood carving gallery.
I made friends with the locals.
Mom and I on the porch of the cute place she rented us
We got a free upgrade to an upstairs room, it was very comfortable with great service!
View to the right from our porch.
View to the left from our porch.
We decided to explore the area and check out Russell accross the bay and Kerikeri up the coast. Russell was a short ferry ride over, the ferry was super speedy and fun :)
Paihia Wharf
The ferry ride to Russell.
Mom and I on the ferry.
Once we got to Russell, there was a kids swimming contest going on right at the docks. The whole town was out, and a lot of people from paihia... so you see how small it really is :)
Super amazing fig tree that's 150 years old.
We stopped at a tasty pizza place and tried the local brew, fun!
This is the oldest stone building in NZ, in Kerikeri.
After checking out the towns of Russell and Kerikeri, Mom and I went back to Paihia and bought tickets onto the Lion New Zealand for an adventure on an 80ft maxi yacht the next day. That post's coming next!
