Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach

Two weeks left in Russell before heading south to Queenstown and the pace of the town slows as the weather transitions to autumn. Most of the expat/foreign hospitality help will be gone within a week. Almost all are dying to leave--Russell now stands on the precipice of the off-season, and it's a place one has to permanently make home to make the winter worthwhile.

I've had some more time off as a result of the dearth of activity (we're hardly needed in the restaurant these days), and a colleague of mine and I took a day trip up to Cape Reinga, the lighthouse that stands guard on the very northern edge of the country. One word captures the scenery: awesome.

In its most literal sense, the Cape is indeed awe-inspiring. Lonely Planet mentions that it has a real "end-of-the-world" feel to it, which it most certainly does--the last 20kms of the trip traverse an unpaved road, which serves to enhance the feeling of remoteness you get when you stand on a bluff a couple of hundred meters above the meeting of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. As the two oceans crash together, there is no wonder why Maori mythology designates the spot as the site where its dead depart the earth.

At the northern edge of the country, on the west coast, the tourist heavy 90 Mile Beach introduces you to the Tasman Sea. The beach is actually 90 kilometers long and driveable with the right car. It's odd to be walking on the beach while looking both ways for traffic--tourist buses motor down the long stretch of sand as if it's a paved highway. The beach itself is unusual in the sense that it's quite flat as you approach the water, giving you the feeling that you are looking up at the incoming surf at water's edge. As a result, the beach itself is quite wide, probably on the order of about 150 yards from surf to turf.

On to the pictures...

Safia, my colleague at the restaurant, was my travelling buddy for the trip. We borrowed my roomie's car. Safia is French-Algerian and very funny. Here we're standing on 90 Mile Beach.

The right cars can drive on the hard sands of the beach, but my roomie's car is barely right for asphalt, much less wet sand. Here, a tourist bus races down the beach at low tide.

Looking up at the incoming surf of the Tasman Sea.

My first contact with the Tasman. The beach is so flat that the waves actually chase you for about 50 yards before retreating back to the ocean.

That's me running toward the ocean. I'm thinking Chariots of Fire II might be in the cards.

My best side.

The lighthouse at Cape Reinga.

Overlooking the Pacific Ocean atop the Cape. I enjoyed capturing the rain falling in the distance.

Directional markers at the lighthouse provide tourists with an idea about how far it is to various world cities. It's far.

The lighthouse.

The South Pacific.

The whitewater in the background is the exact spot where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea meet. You can see waves from both oceans crashing into one another

Talk about a feeling of insignificance.

They're still meeting.

Still.

Looking west over the geography of the cape and the Tasman Sea. Well, I'm not. I'm looking east. Working on acquiring a touch of melanoma.

A must-photograph moment on the way up north.

The roomie's car. Circa '87. Last cleaned: circa '88.

Coopers Beach-about an hour north of Russell on the road to the cape.

You see so much of this exact view here in the North Island. It doesn't seem to get old, however.