Giedre tyttö Ozista

The Endless Summer

This is not ripped from National Geographic, this is taken by Kaj on a quiet evening in Ahipara, Northland, when the tide was out. Ahipara was as stunning and unforgetable as it looks in the picture.

Northland brought happy times to our lives again.

Ever since leaving Auckland we felt very tired of traveling, packing, unpacking, driving, checking out places, wondering (its been 7 weeks of that!).. At some point our senses got quite saturated with "yet another amazing panorama"s and we actually started waiting for this trip to be over..

Northland was different. Amazing, oh yes, but also very relaxed and warm. We didn't do any 8 hour walks, which was nice for a change.

Just this 5 hour walk to the Duke's Nose rock.. :) Crossing the rivers and climbing steep rocks and nearly puking at the unusual sightings of dead possums hanging on the trees (will write more about possums).

The overwhelming change, I guess was that we got back to the Tshirt weather. It never gets really cold in Northland. There's plenty of orange and mandarin gardens, and I'd imagine that the climate is somewhat similar to California, except that its surrounded by water, so it never gets hotter than +28C in summer.

For some reason we quite often end up walking other people's dogs. Whenever we go for a walk, there's always some doggy looking for a company that tags along. NZ dogs are very cool and intelligent, I guess mostly because they run free and don't live locked up in highrise buildings and don't need a psychoanalyst. We have very beautiful interactions with them. Actually these dogs are not supposed to run freely, because they may scare birds or eat their eggs, but quite a lot of them do.

Its funny that since we came here we became less impressed with the ecological situation here. Its clean and green, yes, but only because there's a lot of land and people have been around for only a few centuries. A lot of times you see old cars just dumped somewhere and we've read statistics that people generate much more garbage here than in other developed countries. Another very strange thing here is that they still heat their houses with wood and that they don't insulate houses properly, so all the heat just goes out the same way. Also the amount of cars (and the kind of cars - 4WD, of course) that kiwis drive is quite impressive (should I say depressive?). There are attempts to be more ecological and, I guess, thats the image that NZ tries to project as a tourist destination, but I think they should do much more work to really live up to that reputation...

Driving (oh yes, driving is great!) on the 90 mile beach (to drive on the beach you need a 4WD, of course) is a great attraction. The sand is supposed to be very firm during the low tide, but we didn't dare to go in our humble rental car...

Ahipara town itself is a starting point of the 90 Mile Beach and aparently is a great spot for surfing (yet another one of great NZ surfing spots :)

We have dashed into waves for a swim in one of the beaches before and the water didn't feel deadly (some +16-17C degrees). So this time we decided to try out something more serious and went for a surfing class! It was great fun and Kaj managed to stand on the board by the end of 2.5h lesson. I'm still fighting my instincts, as I didn't manage to go beyond kneeling on the board (that is wrong, you should jump straight onto your feet). In 2.5h swimming, paddling and gliding we were completely exhausted and cold. And in the evening we had to listen to the other surfers telling us that they may surf 5-6 hours at a time and they don't get cold or tired.. yeah, right... I go home now and do my pushups...

Anyway, we probably will attempt to surf some more here, so hopefully I'll manage to be reckless enough to jump on the board.. These beginners boards are anyway so huge, that once you catch a wave, it feels like you're on a bus, rattling, shaking, relatively slow, but going steadily.. :)

While in Northland we also went to Cape Renga, the Northern-most point of the North Island.

At this point 2 oceans (Tasmanian sea and the Pacific Ocean) meet and we were supposed to see some huge clashing waves.

For some reason the waves were big just from one side and the cape itself was full of tourist buses. Winter is approaching and most of the tourists have left already, so it was surprising to see so many people there. We already forgot how it was to be on the tourist trail...

Going down the huge Te Papa sand dunes on the way back was cool and it helped us to believe that finally we've discovered the place of the endless summer and fun.

Another discovery was toilets designed by Hundertwasser in Kawakawa town. I bet you didn't know that he lived his last 27 years in NZ! If you didn't even know who he is, he's a famous Austrian architect and artist that has designed quite a few very colourful and famous buildings in Vienna.

They say these are one of the most photographed toilets in the world! And I can see why! Isn't it amazing how he used these colourful wine bottles?!? And I wonder where the insipration for this decoration came from...

Our holiday here is about to end (or rather is about to continue on the other side of the globe :). In a week I'll already be in Finland (coming down on the 8th of June)! And to Lithuania after Midsummer. I'm very thrilled about meeting everyone. Except the good people that came down to visit us in leijonakaupunki, I haven't seen anyone for 2 years. Surely the biggest shock is going to be everybody's children.. Walking, talking and doing things, although they were helpless babies last time I saw them...