First To See The Sunrise

The east cape of New Zealand is one of the first places in the world to see the sunrise so we dragged ourselves out of bed in the dark and shuffled (and shuffling is the only form of movement possible at that hour in the morning before you've had you tea) over to the beach to be some of the first to witness the new day. I've seen many sunrises but that's usually because I'm still up, not just up. It's not much of a different experience this way round, everyones just as bleary eyed and there's a similar amount of slurring and drooling as people fight to gain control of their basic motor funtions.

Here's the thing about watching the sunrise an all, it's really really pretty but you can't fucking look at it unless you want a series of half suns floating around your vision for 20 minutes.

Sunrise Over Tatapouri

Once the early morning Becoming Human process was complete we were picked up by a small Brazilian man called Leo who drove us out to a natural rockslide on the other side of Gisbourne. He'll kit you out in a wetsuit, hand you something vaguely resembling a body board with handles and you get to spend the morning throwing yourself down this slope covered in algae with water running down it. It's fucking awesome! You can steer it down by putting your hands in the water to keep it straight and when you hit the bottom you bounce but you really have to make sure your tongue is well out of the way of your teeth.

Rock Sliding

How Many Backpackers Does It Take To Start A Van?

We entertained ourselves with a few races watched by a rather bewildered looking sheep before heading back to the bus and spending half an hour trying to bump start it. Apparently this is a regular thing yet still it doesn't occur to him to invest in jump leads. Or, and here's a crazy idea, a new battery.

Once we were delivered safely back to Renz we meandered towards Rangitukia via the longest jetty in NZ. Yeah yeah, I took a photo but it's not as long as the one in Bussleton, WA, and to be fair, how many photos of jettys does one blog need?
There's a BBH backpackers in Rangitukia, its really nice and all, I totally recommend it and you can arrange a couple of activities from there such as horse trekking and bone carving, a traditional Maori artform. There was also an option for possum hunting but the guy who arranges that wasn't around so no novelty nipple warmers made from the skins of dead pests for me today.
About a 10 minute walk from here is another place you can watch the sunrise but getting up at that hour AND walking (or shuffling) for 10 minutes just didn't appeal to me and hey, you've seen one sunrise you've seen them all right?

However, the bone pendant carving I totally recommend. Its like $60 and they take you through the whole process so the finished product is something you could give to someone and they wouldn't have to find an excuse to store it in the bottom drawer and you ARE meant to give it to someone, bone carvings are meant to be gifts so I made one for Loody.

Traditionally the Maoris used whale bone but since whales became protected they're only allowed to use the bones of whales that die naturally. Fair enough. These days they use cattle bone and this is what we would be carving. There are heaps of different designs to chose from and they have different meanings. I chose a Hei-Matau for Loody which is basically a stylised fish hook, its meant to provide safety over water and represents a great respect for the sea. Loody's a diver (scuba, muff, you name it) and I used to call her half a fish because she's so at home in the water. I figured it'd be perfect for her.

Anyway, after we'd spent a while breathing in powdered cow and sanded our finished products until they were smooth we settled in for a hangi and made an early night of it on account of another early start the following day.

Hmm. This restful trip wasn't proving to be very restful now was it.

written by

Koala Bear on March 3, 2009 from Rangitukia, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt, NorthIsland and EastAs

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Dude, it's the Oz Hooptie!

http://www.blogabond.com/Photos/PhotoView.aspx?imageID=996

Me and the girlie pushed that self-same van from Brisbane to Melbourne 3 years ago. We never had it running for more than a few days at a stretch. Looks like it got deported and shelled off on the unsuspecting natives of New Zealand.

Nice!

written by

Jason Kester on April 8, 2009

Bahahahaha :D And you even use the wing mirrors as a clothes line, just like Leo. Except he's usually driving the van at the same time... once he's got it started anyways.

written by

Koala Bear on April 8, 2009

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