The Edge of the Map

The perfect blue of the early morning deteriorated to a congested palette of white and grey clouds by the time we’d made it past breakfast. Our justification for a lazy day on Paihia Beach was now placed in the shade, and instead we made preparations for a little road-trip.

New Zealand is a small country, with no two points ever appearing too far apart. However, the roads aren’t quite as straight and uninterrupted as those of the Australian outback – a truth discovered time and time again on our travels in the south island. Here it takes a little longer to drive 120km than a generous hour. It wasn’t far into our drive north before we started realising how long it might actually take. Nevertheless, every kilometre covered was one nearer our destination, one further from home, and another reason to just keep on going. I’m always one to put the hard graft in first and enjoy the leisure afterwards, so our journey north was without interruption. I’m also pretty stubborn and don’t like giving up on anything so refused to turn back.

It took just under 4 hours to make it to Cape Reinga. It is the most northerly point of New Zealand that is easily accessible by car, and as such draws those on a pilgrimage to travel the length of the country. I suppose our motivation for coming here was similar, but we also wanted to see the point where the South Pacific Ocean & the Tasman Sea meet. We’d heard that you can actually distinguish a colour difference between these colliding waters, and thus a front to their eternal battle, but we discovered this was probably just a little romantic notion.

Another point of interest about this area is that legend states it draws people for a very different reason and for a very different purpose. On the tip of Cape Reinga, there is an 800 year-old pohutukawa tree. According to Maori belief, it is the roots of this tree that hide the entrance to the Underworld, and is thus the gateway for all spirits leaving the earth. On that note, we decided it wasn’t quite our time for earthly departure and returned south.

The Te Paki Reserves are 7 sq km of giant sand dunes - a playground for travellers, a highlight for tour parties, and the feel of being on another planet.

The amateurs here were only using ‘Boogy-boards’ to surf the dunes, not the custom designed boards we’d used in Western Australia, so we weren’t tempted to carve the grains.

Instead we explored on foot, and then moved down the peninsular to '90 Mile Beach'. It is actually closer to 90 kilometres in length, but we’ll forgive the creative labelling in view of how incredible this place is. I’ve been on some pretty long beaches before, but none as long as this or as impossibly straight as this. The effect is an expanse of sand on either side of you, over a hundred metres wide, disappearing into the distance to a pinpoint. There is nothing but ocean in front, and an endless shoulder of sand far behind you. It feels like the end of the world. The edge of the God's canvass.

We lacked a 4-wheel drive vehicle so couldn’t explore far. That would have to be an adventure for another day. Besides, the sun was now well into her descent, and we had a long way to travel home. We stopped occasionally on the return lag, but most were fleeting instances except for an extended appreciation of a breathtaking sunset. It brought back memories of travelling around Australia, and made us think about how many moments like this we've missed since working again.