I really could've killed the guy in our room last night. He nearly choked himself to death snoring, and woke himself up. Snorers should be banned from hostels. Or they should all be put in the same room. I've slept in the same room with mates who snore before and like to hold their nose - that wakes them up.
I couldn't get to sleep to start with and then this guy was snoring so it was around 1.30am when I got to sleep. And we were up at 6.30am! Tired.

Just after 7am, the Dune Rider picked us up for our tour to the northern tip of New Zealand - Cape Reigna. It's like a mini truck/lorry/coach looking thing that can drive on sand...

We stopped for coffee in Taipa. Small hotel with a coffee bar, which is right on the beach (well, literally across the road). Really quiet there and a lovely view to sit and have coffee (with a cereal bar).

Stopped off for a 45 minute tour around a place called Kauri Gumdiggers and Ancient Buried Forest. The Kauri trees are huge and each tree lives for about 2,000 years, but here they were wiped out first by an ice age around 90,000 years ago and then again by a huge Tsunami around 45,000 years ago. They say this buried ancient forest is around 100,000 years old. In the 1800s European settlers started to excavate the ancient forests to extract gum from the roots. The gum was used for all kinds of things and mainly as a varnish back in England. Loads more history but I won't bore you with it.
The forest there now is made up of different Tea Trees, so there was a nice tea trea oil smell when we were walking through.

It took about another hour and 15 minutes to make it up to Cape Reigna, on the "highway" (single lane country road!) which they only finished Tarmacing 8 months ago - it was previously gravel. The terrain is really hilly up the peninsula and filled with trees and you can see the sea on either side.

The view was amazing at Cape Reigna. From the top of the walk down you can see a huge beach on the left and all the rolling waves going towards it. We were really high up actually as well. Then as we walked down further we could see lots of little bays up the coast on the right (east). But one of the best things to see is the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meeting! Although it was apparently very tame clashing today, it was still really visible where the two were meeting. It creates waves in the middle of the sea and they crash into each other.

We walked right down to the most northern lighthouse in New Zealand which also has a big sign up saying how far it is to London, Sydney etc. Really fantastic views though. The photos I took and the video definitely won't do it justice. It really does feel like you're at the top of New Zealand when you look out as well. Flipping windy down there though.
There's also a tree that sticks out from a rocky point right at the end of the Cape. The tree is where the indigenous Maori people believe that there souls depart New Zealand from to return to the islands that they once came from.
It's a very cultural place New Zealand. Lots of history about the Maori people.

We drove down to a little bay from there for lunch. We'd made a pack up lunch so had a little picnic on towels. Blazing hot by then as well. Perfect time for a dip. The waves were awesome out there. There were really big powerful white waves hurtling at me and usually you can just jump side ways through them, but these ones were throwing me right back. The current when the big waves were coming was really strong though. Really had to dig my feet in to prevent myself getting sucked into the waves. There were waves coming from all directions as well. Just wish I had a boogie board.

Time for a bit more adventure - Dune boarding. Could not believe the size of the sand dunes. They were massive. Really steep and high. You don't even realise how high they are either until someone is stood up at the top of them. The coach took us through this stream at the bottom of the dunes and then stopped at the bottom of on he called the death slide. As we pulled up, we saw this guy laid down on a boogie board hurtling down the sand dune...it did not look safe!

We got our sand boards, which have a shiny plastic bottom and look just like boogie boards, and headed up the side of the sand dune. Flipping hard work walking up the side of there in the sand - three steps forward, two steps back! We kept breaking to watch the other people flying down there. Couldn't wait to have a go.
I took the camera up with me and recorded a video of Therese flying down. Then I left the camera with our driver and flew down myself. It's really fast going down and then right at the bottom there's a little drop onto the stream! Although there's not much water running through it at all at the moment. Still got wet sand all over me though. Absolutely brilliant fun - we both had a couple more goes and watched others flying down. There was a couple of Chinese who weren't doing it right, so right at the bottom they'd hit the water in the stream, glide across that and hit a bit of traction on the wet sand...they kept going but the board stopped at the wet sand. They were covered in wet sand and nobody could help but laugh! They weren't bothered anyway, they were straight back up again.

From the dunes we drove straight onto 90 mile beach. Actually, it's only about 63 miles long. Long enough though. When the tide is out, the beach is really wide and it's like a proper highway and you have to follow all the laws as if it is. It's not really golden sandy beaches that you'd lay on but it's a lovely place. Dangerous place to be driving if you don't understand the tides etc. Apparently there's loads of cars that get stuck up there in the sand and the tide comes in and sinks the cars. There was the remains of one car from only the other week. The car had been sunk down in the sand and only just where the roof would be was sticking out. I say would be, because all we could see was the four corners where the roof would normally be attached, but the powerful currents had ripped the roof off! We drove about 70km down the beach.

After an hour and half driving we stopped off for food...Fish and Chips! Therese had a healthy bean salad, and I had battered Blue Nose (I think it's a type of cod) and chips. Really nice and not badly priced for mine - $8 (£4)! Lovely restaurant too - we sat outside in the sun looking out over the harbour.

We had full bellies and were tired out from an early start and a pretty active day! We both got some sleep in on the coach ride back. Therese was still asleep when I woke up and her head kept falling off my shoulder. Then her head fell off and she didn't lift it back up so her neck and back were just arched over and she was fast a sleep - looked a sight! I nudged her to wake her up and she rested on my shoulder again. Her head slowly slid down my arm and she just rested there. Next thing I felt this blob of wet cold stuff drop on my arm...she drooled on me!! I woke her up and said "you've drooled on me" and she just laughed and said "have I?" and we both just looked at the blob sat on my arm! So I wiped it on her and she said "euurghh, don't wipe it on ME!".........don't wipe it on me!?!? I said "don't dribble on me then!!"
(Therese will absolutely kill me when she finds out I've written that!!! Haha! She doesn't read these anyway so won't find out for a while...don't be telling her!)

We got back at about 8pm so it was a long day and a full on day tour. Really good and recommended! We got showered etc then went out to get a bottle of wine with some girls from our hostel, but the bottle shop was closed! Closes early on a Sunday!
So instead we went for drinks in Base's bar as it was cheap night anyway. $4 (£2) for a pint or glass of wine, so not bad. Me, Therese, Lisa and two other girls called Natalie and Claire went in for a few drinks plus they had a live band on who were pretty good as well.

We could have stayed out all night, but called it a night at midnight. I've only had about 10 hours sleep in 2 days and Therese hasn't had much more! We're changing hostel tomorrow too so have to be checked out by 10am - cheaper in the YHA and should get a better nights sleep.

Fantastic day anyway - seen sooo much in one day!!