Catching Up – Phyllis

It has been a couple of days since we posted and some of our activities now seem to have been from ages ago! I will endeavor to cover what has been happening.

Zorb

New Zealand is the home of the Zorb Ball. Nope, we didn’t participate. We observed. I hadn’t realized that in ’tame’ Zorbing, not the dangerous mountain zorbing that a group of Russian men participated in several years ago, there is pool of water inside an inner sphere in the ball that you float/slide in and stay more or less supine throughout the ride down the hill.

The Zorb Park has specific pathways to choose from and you are ‘birthed’ from the ball, for want of a better term, when the guides unzip the hatch for the inner ball and you come cascading out with the pool of water. It is safe enough that small children can accompany their parents in the ball. The balls are enormous at 3 or 4 times the height of the attendant that has to push and support the ball into place for the rider to disembark.

Food

“Moules et frites” (mussels and fries) was the gastronomic high light of our trip to the Atlantic coast of France with the kids back in 2010. Last Monday, in Tauranga, we came across a pub advertising Mussel Madness night. The ambience didn’t quite match sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean at Pointe de Raz in France, but our dinner was good. NZ mussels are larger, somewhat stronger tasting than those in France and the delicate Malpeque mussels we sometimes get from PEI. They are their own special treat and we were able to sit on a patio across form a lovely beach in the centre of town.

Hot Water Beach

One of more novel experiences was at Hot Water Beach. There is a geothermal spring running under the sand. The hot water seeps up to the surface and at low tides, people rush out to madly dig holes in the sand to form temporary hot baths. The heat made even the sand too hot for my tender feet.

In the picture you can see Ken getting hit with cold ocean water after he dug a small hole on the edge of the field. You can also see people lounging in their dug out baths, but I really don’t know how they tolerated how hot it can be.

Cycling

Leg day was not over and done with. We continued on toward Whangamata (I cannot even begin to properly pronounce some of these pace names) and rented regular bikes for a rail to trail ride the Hauraki Rail Trail, an old gold mining line from Waihi to Waikino area, turning around after a cool passage through a mile long, wonderfully cool tunnel.

I haven’t ridden an unpowered bike in over a year. We were in farm land for most of the ride and could have reached out and patted the snouts of the cattle as we passed by. This was the last day of the Waitanga weekend and the trails and parks were still full of folks celebrating their last big summer outing before school really gets serious.

Repositioning

Wednesday was a tedious driving day for Ken. We headed toward the northern most part of NZ passing through Auckland and up the center of the country on their largest toll road. Overall, it was about an 8-hour drive, mostly along New Zealand’s narrow and twisty secondary roads. We are staying in the tourist town of Paihia. My initial feeling has been that this is more of a party town than Tauranga.

The Cape

Yesterday, we visited 90 Mile Beach, Giant Sand Dunes, Cape Reigna and Tapotupotu Bay.

90 Mile Beach is separated form the road and country side by high dunes and truly stretch as far as you can see in either direction. We only saw two other groups of people on the beach and they were largely obscured by mist.

The Giant dunes a bit further out rival Sand Dune State Park in Oregon. There are no dune buggies to rent, but there is a handy fellow who rents out boogie boards so that you can spend an hour or two laboriously climbing to the top of a dune to then board down at a perilous rate of speed. We didn’t do this, either. These old bones and fragile skin just aren’t up to abrasions and fractures.

The road out to Cape Reigna is as windy and hilly as almost all of the roads we have traversed thus far. Its constantly down to sea level and then up high enough to look out and down at the ocean surrounding the peninsula heading out to the cape.

On a clear day, you can see three islands off the coast of Australia, called the Three Kings in NZ, from the light house at the tip of the cape. It was a bit of a hike down and well worth the effort. We have been to a fair number of volcanic islands in the past few years. The coast line here is much like the west side of Maui and a whole lot warmer and sunnier that Newfoundland and Iceland.

Ken had read a bit about Tapotupotu Bay and was eager to follow the dirt road down to the beach. The bay is protected by rock large outcroppings on its sides. The beach has smooth fine sand, is shallow and the waves come in gently, spreading across the width of the bay. We watched a couple of young guys body surfacing. There is a small campground at one end and a very nice day use area in the middle of the park. We both agreed that it was the loveliest beach area we have visited.

Going Forward

Today will be a quiet day with a short ferry ride to visit to Russel, one of New Zealand’s oldest settlements, for a leisurely walk and lunch.