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Sand Tobogganing |
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| After the drive up the beach, we turned inland and drove up the Te Paki Stream bed to a dune for sand sledding. | |
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| The driver warned us not to bring anything valuable up on the dunes- things get lost in the sand. So, the film camera stayed in the bus, and the digital camera came up on the dune with me. | |
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Walk up the dune. |
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Views from the top of the dunes. |
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Note the clouds - the Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa - 'land of the long white cloud'. Northland was the first part of NZ to be settled by the Maori, so it's these clouds that prompted the name. |
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A video of a run down the sand.
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| Some views of Ta Paki Stream | |
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| Some pictures as we continued on inland towards Cape Reinga. The clouds in the first image caught my eye. | |
| (Pictures were taken through a bus window, sorry about the reflection.) | |
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| Driving in the stream is a mixed bag. It's necessary, as the fresh water of the stream washes the sea salt from the undercarriage. But you absolutely cannot stop in the stream bed, as the mix of water and sand makes for a type of quicksand. Your vehicle will start sinking into the sand immediately. Since the vehicle's four wheels are all stuck, it cannot extract itself, and the problem gets progressively worse. This is different from the sinking that occurs on 90-mile beach. On 90-mile Beach, you're generally OK, if the tide is out - the sand without water on it is reasonably packed. The admonition is not just limited to vehicles either; if you let your horse stop for a drink, the hooves will start to sink in the sand also. Stopping on the banks is OK, as the sand is reasonably packed, but you have to keep moving in the stream itself. | |
| A page for a rescue mission at the sand sledding area. | |
