Sera in New Zealand: TE PA KAINGA O REWA – REWA’S VILLAGE The Maori

TE PA KAINGA O REWA – REWA’S VILLAGE

 

 

My trip in New Zealand continues with a visit at the Te Pa Kainga o Rewa, which is a replica of a Maori Fishing Village, including Gardens & Native Plant Garden. Rewa’s Village is a full scale replica of a pre – European Maori fishing village, where you can listent to the tranquil waters of « Te Awa o Nga Rangatira » river and enjoy the picturesque surrounding of the Kerikeri Basin. Rewa’s Villages sits in one of the most important historical sites in New Zealand for Maori an early European settlement.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traditional plant used by the Maori

 

 

Sera in New Zealand: Cape Reinga & Ninety Mile beach

Cape Reinga

The Historic Cape Reinga Lighthouse built in 1941 marks the extreme north-western point of New Zealand. Take a day for this outing, book an organized tour along 90 mile beach to Cape Reinga and the Lighthouse, toboggan down giant sand dunes on the way, or experience the isolation and the widerness with the drive along 90 mile beach, travel alongside Auporuri forest, which runs parallel to Ninety Mile Beach. Enjoy the walkway from the carpark to where the Lighthouse perches atop a steep headland looking out to where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet.

 

The Tasman Sea meeting the Pacific Ocean

The meeting point

 

The Lighthouse

Ninety Mile Beach

Ninety-Mile Beach is the fabled strip of sand that stretches from Ahipara to Scott  Point, five kilometres south of Cape Maria van Diemen. Truth be told, it is actually 88 kilometres long.

 

Ninety-Mile Beach is officially a highway, but is really only suitable for 4WD vehicles and is safe to drive only at specific times of the tides. Rental companies won’t allow their cars on the sand, mostly for safety reasons. The easy way to drive along the beach is to catch a coach tour from Kaitaia. If you are short of time in Northland and staying in the Bay of Islands, coach tours and scenic flights up to Cape Reinga depart from Paihia daily.

 

 

 

Beach activities range from surfcasting and swimming to bodyboarding down the sand dunes. A special treat is digging for tuatua (a native shellfish) in the sand at low tide. Flanking the beach is the Aupouri Forest, which provides a green escape from the hot sun.

Once a year in late February or early March, 90 Mile Beach hosts a five day fishing competition. Hundreds of anglers surf cast from the beach hoping to catch the biggest snapper, a delicious white-flesh fish found in New Zealand waters.

Here it is common to see wild horses on the beach and around in the countryside.

 

Sera in New Zealand: North Island Sand Dunes

Discovering North Island Sand Dunes

 

Did you know the New Zealand’s desert? Do you dare to DO THE DUNES?

The Giant Te paki Sand Dunes merge with the infamous 90 mile beach. These beautiful giant sand mountains will definitely get euphoria pumping through your veins as you take on the steep slopes, but don’t freak, there are dunes of all sizes to suit your level of thrill capacity. 

 

 

Go back to the starting of my trip in New Zealand here

Sera in New Zealand: Kawakawa

KAWAKAWA

Approximately at 20 minute drive from Kerikeri, visit the Glow Worm caves which are a further 5 kms. Yhen come back to Kerikeri via Paihia.

Kawakawa is a small town in the Northland Region of northern New Zealand.

The town is known as « Train town », because the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway runs down the middle of its main street on the way to Opua.

Kawakawa remains unique in having the railway running through its main street but the most known attraction in the city is the Hundertwasser toilets with its ceramic columns, garden roof and curving. Their colourful exuberance has put the Northland town of Kawakawa on the international tourist route. Designed and built by the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, internationally regarded architect and ecologist who, delighted by invitation, emerged from its reclusive lifestyle nearby from until 1975, to oversee the project. The Kawakawa toilets were Hundertwasser’s final creation and are seen as an important memorial to him after his death in 2000.

 

HUNDERTWASSER’S TOILETS

 

 

Entrance of the Hundertwasser toilet building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go back to the starting of my trip in New Zealand here