We tried to kick off early for our "main event" day, and the roads were so clear I could use all of it. SO much fun! We ploughed our way through the gravel roads up to Cape Reinga, where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. You can actually see the water swirling and dancing at the meeting point. Cool.
Next stop: the giant sand dunes! We firstly saw the route out to 90 Mile Beach and pretty quickly decided that wasn't going to happen. I've never known anyone successfully drive a people carrier down a river and I wasn't itching to be the first. Up on the dunes, it was hot and dry and the view was sand for miles. It was like a mini Sahara Desert. There was nobody hiring out bodyboards at the car park, but I met a couple called Matt and Louise who generously lent me their bodyboard and even took pictures of me sandboarding! I returned the favour and rejoined the girls who were somewhere miles away. Eventually we all jumped in the sand a lot, as we had no boards. Still fun!
I want to make this absolutely clear to the car rental company if they happen to read this: the following section is entirely untrue and made up. Even the photos of what happened are all faked. Honest...
SO, we drove further south and eventually onto 90 Mile Beach. After several chats with the people hanging around on the beach, we decided our car could drive on the beach with no problems. Other than the driver. I stupidly thought I'd do a bit of a 360 turn up the beach to check something out and suddenly I had no grip and we were stuck! Thus ensued a lot of digging, putting towels and dead squid under the wheels, until sensibly Catherine went off and found help in the form of a 4WD truck. After I swore at him for driving past despite my waving, he turned around and dragged us out of a minefield of soft sand.
With that adventure over, we all took turns driving on miles of beach and speeding over creeks. Eventually we got to a turnoff back to a real road, but it was surrounded by soft sand. Charna drove us through it while I shouted at her to drive faster and we were safe. We headed straight to Opononi across the river by ferry and managed to catch the last one that was leaving south. With time to kill, we all cracked open a beer.
And then we got lost. We spent a long time trying to find this one hostel and drove up two wrong turnings. People were getting stressed and I braved an excited bulldog to ask for directions. Eventually we got there at 9:30pm, exhausted. Curry, beers and a shower before bed.