Ninety Mile Beach Superhighway

We can now cross off of our bucket list “driving an old family van at high speeds along a deserted beach”. Yes, crazily enough, “90 mile beach”, which is located at the Northern tip of the Island, is legally a highway. We had mixed feelings about actually driving on it with our van, a 1998 Toyota minivan with 2 wheel drive.  We had read several guide books and asked various people at the holiday park where we were staying in Ahipara Beach. But as is typical in NZ, we got varied answers-everything from "What kind of car do you have? Hmm, I wouldn’t drive the beach in a 2 wheel drive" to "You'll be fine. It's much faster than taking the highway over land."  The main advice was to drive on the hard packed sand just above the water line as the tide receded - venture up too high and you get stuck in the soft sand. Too low and you are obviously in the ocean. Also, keep the wheels moving and don’t stop on soft sand, specially when entering or exiting the beach.  Confusing matters was the equally important advice...don’t keep spinning the wheels if you do get stuck or you just go deeper in the sand. Our go-to-guide book assured us that it a snap to drive the beach and only drunken idiots got stuck in the sand. Pete reassured everyone he was neither drunk nor an idiot, though a drink may have helped to calm the nerves…and his idiocy is in question for taking his family driving on an ocean beach.

At any rate, Pete had a moment of bravery (or foolhardiness) wash over him and we ventured out onto the sand at Ahipara Beach at a receding low tide right off the main paved road in town early in the morning.  Soon we were doing something that you have to see to believe - cruising along at high speeds (high for our van anyway, over 80 km/h) on a deserted stretch of beach.  The whole time on the beach we probably saw about two backpackers, two other cars with fishermen, and the occasional washed up dead seal - sadness : (

The beach is fairly featureless as NZ beaches go, with surf to our left and low dunes to our right. Here we are on the beach.

We had to cross the occasional small stream and slow down for a few bumps here and there but were otherwise making our way without any trouble until we hit a surprise bump at about 80 kph. All of a sudden, our van turned into Chitty Chitty Bang Band and we were airborne for a very brief moment. We thumped down onto the sand and various foodstuffs flew out of the back of the car and smacked Kendra in the back of the head. She was a good sport about it and once we had stopped the bleeding scalp wound (JK) and checked the car’s suspension (Pete actually has no idea how to check the suspension, so he just looked at the front of the car and said in his most reassuring manly voice, “uh, yup, looks fine”) we were on our way.

The next tricky part was finding the exit to the beach. There were a couple places where you really DID need a four wheel drive, as you had to drive uphill slightly over some soft sand.  The main destination for 2 wheel drive cars was Te Paki Stream, a real stream that winds between sand dunes for about 3 km from the central part of the peninsula and empties into the ocean.  Once again Jen’s terrible directional skills waylaid us but Pete eventually took hold of the map and we found Te Paka Stream (we knew we were in the right place because we saw signs everywhere telling us how hazardous it was to drive in the stream!?!). So obviously, here is where it gets real crazy. Yes, we drove out along a stream bed through beautiful tall desolate sand dunes.

The water was flowing toward us, but the stream bed was pretty flat and hard packed. Family Van saw us through the flowing inches of water to the actual road. The only really hairy part was when the stream split into two narrow paths, both about a car width, one that looked a little muddy, and the other seemed to have a fairly deep pond of water. Pete was told to never stop so he just barreled on at about 20 km/hr, made a split second decision to go right, no, left, no, right (!) and had everyone in the car screaming at him, and then went plowing through the high water/pond option with no real problem! A quarter mile after that bit of exhilaration we were exiting the stream bed for a real dirt road (YES!) and we stopped at the car park by the huge sand dunes to explore and for Pete to get some blood back into his white knuckles. (There are still little indents on the steering wheel from Pete's grip pressure on the wheel- see pic above.)

We climbed up on the dunes

and had a blast jumping off the edge and sliding down.

Getting back in our car we still had a half hour or so of driving to arrive at the northern most tip of the North Island, Cape Reinga. This point holds special spiritual significance for the Maori, as they believe it is THE location where the spirit departs for the afterlife. To our eyes, it was yet another example of God’s great glory in creating such a beautiful location. The cape lookout and lighthouse is up on a cliff and as you look down you can see the waters of the Tasman Sea to the left and the Pacific Ocean to the right. Where it meets, the water forms a beautiful grid pattern of aqua blue waters as the surf collides (see google earth, or our pictures below hopefully do this justice). And, just beyond the lighthouse, there is a tree believed to be 600 years old that is impossibly perched out on the tip of the last rock. You can just make that tree out in the pic just below.

We finally left the lighthouse area, and since the ocean beach road would have become impassable due to the coming high tide (there were occasional warnings made about cars being trapped in the advancing surf and becoming a permanent feature of the beach or sea) we drove home on the windy, hilly land highway, a trip that took twice as long as the beach highway did! The dinner at our campsite that night was to die for, and we gave many thanks for our safe passage that day. What an experience!