greetings from kaitaia!

if you remember our map from a few posts ago, you can find us in kaitaia, at the base of ninety mile beach in nz's northland region. the hostel that we're staying in is MUCH nicer than the auckland one - it's cleaner, roomier, quieter, and it even has a tv with a dvd selection. makes us feel like home :) we watched whale rider last night, a film made locally that new zealanders are quite proud of, and for good reason. besides the lord of the rings, new zealand also boasts about the piano and once were warriors, neither of which we have yet seen.

sunday was our last full day in auckland. we visited a presbyterian church a block from our hostel and met a nice family that took us home with them for lunch (our first experience with meat pies!) and then out to a gorgeous beach on auckland's west coast. the husband has recently started working in the chapel on auckland university's campus, trying to restart a fledgling christian community there. we had a great time with them and their 4 kids, and bryan is now in love with the word "jandals" (flip-flops) after hearing them use it so frequently.

yesterday morning we hopped a bus up to kaitaia, a 7-hour trip that made bryan feel pretty queasy on its steep serpentine roads, and tomorrow morning we will take a tour bus to cape reinga. it takes the paved road one way and the beach road (literally just the hard-packed sand) the other, and we're hoping that the tides allow us to take the paved road up so that we can see the sights along the way, as we will be hiking back down the beach for the next 5 days or so and don't feel the night to drive that route. cape reinga is where the tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet, and on good days you can, apparently, actually see the two bodies of water collide at a point below the cape's lighthouse. it also has a spiritual significance for the maori, as legend calls cape reinga the spot where spirits depart for hawaiiki, their homeland.

we're off to swing by the local a/g church and to send off our bounce box, which is filled with extra supplies (powdered milk, dry socks, hand sanitizer, etc) and will "bounce" ahead of us to a town a week or two away. sorry there are still no pictures - unfortunately, it will probably have to be from kerikeri, 12 days away.

later, gators!

-rachel