(Visited Kerikeri and St Paul's Rock - some of the best views I've ever seen - along the way).
Not much to say about this place other than the fact that it is the "gateway" to the far north - Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach (which is in fact only 63 miles long)!!
Anyway, rather than join a tour (in which you actually get driven along the beach, amongst many other things), we decided to drive to the Cape. After all, that is why we hired a car in the first place.
So after driving three quarters of the way to the Cape, we stopped at the last petrol station "in the far north" as we were getting a little low on fuel. Guess what - no petrol! Worried that we wouldn't have enough to continue to the top and then drive back to the nearest station, we decided to go back and get the petrol first and THEN come all the way back again!!! I'm not quite sure why we did this because I am now convinced we would have had enough petrol (just about)!
This decision cost us about 1 1/2 hours!!
Anyway, we did FINALLY manage to make it to Cape Reinga and it really does feel like you're at the end of the world (expect for all the tourists)!!
We also stopped off at the Giant Sand Dunes at Te Paki - and yes, they really are Giant! (We didn't do any sandboarding this time though)!!
We never did manage to make it to 90 Mile Beach though.....not sure why?!