Ninety Mile Beach 沙很大

Andy, Jesu and I went on a two-day trip to Ninety Mile Beach. We took the bus tour to travel on the beach and reached the northern tip of New Zealand. :)

The main thing for the first day was to drive to Kaitaia. We stopped at Whangarei and Bay of Islands on the way. We took the ferry from Paihai to Russell in the afternoon. It's a small and quiet town on the East side of Bay of Islands. There isn't much there. We strolled along the beach of pebbles. For me, the best thing was that we saw beautiful scenery on the ferry cruise.

We took the Ninety-Mile Beach bus tour on the second day. The bus ran on the long beach like driving on a highway. It was cool to watch the waves this way. The vast empty beach with endless waves was a nice scenery. We travelled on the beach for an hour or so.

We then arrived at the sand dunes. We got to toboggan down the sand dune. We had to climb up the sand dune before we slide down, though. It was quite tiring as the slope was steep and the sand slides down when I put my feet on it.

We got to the top eventually. Here we go. Let's slide! I accelerated quite fast as I slid down. Then, I'm not sure what exactly happened. When I reached the bottom and waited for it to slow down, I flipped and flew out of my toboggan, and landed my head on the sand. I couldn't open my eyes for a while as there was sand on my face, in my eyes, ears, everywhere.

A short while later I climbed up and slid down again. I was worried that I might run into one of two rocks at the bottom, though. Luckily I went between them. This time I tried getting out of the toboggan myself at the bottom and I didn't fall this time. It was fun! Climbing was very tiring, though. Also, I got sand everywhere, even in my mouth and nostrils. For the whole day, I saw sand fell from somewhere on my head when I touched my face or hair.

Next, we headed to Cape Reinga, the north most tip of New Zealand. The scenery was beautiful. We then had our lunch at a beach in the same area. The wind was strong and the waves were high.

The bus then drove southward and stopped at some other locations. The most notable one was Rarawa Beach. The sand on the beach was very white and fine. Too bad we had only a few minutes on the beach. That's the downside of this tour. We only stopped at each place for a short time. So we couldn't enjoy the beach leisurely. But I guess Cape Reinga really is very far in the North. It takes many hours just to travel between places.

Another interesting thing was a staircase in a show room that was carved out of a kauri log.

After sitting on the bus for the whole day. We still had to drive four and half hours back to Auckland. We only stopped at Whangarei to have a dinner at Quayside. My back was so stiff when we returned to Auckland at night.

Andy played the tower defence game on PSP throughout the journey; in the back seat, on the bus, in the motel. Determination! Jesu likes to take photos of himself. hehe :)

Conclusions (寫論文...)

沙很大、風很大、浪很大、樹很大

(photos? pending.)