Our Trip to Cape Reinga

After our night in Paihia, we continued our trip up to the Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga.

We met a guy named James, a member of the church, who drove his car up to Paihia with us so he could take us up 90 mile beach in his car.  90 Mile Beach is just exactly what it says...Its 90 miles up to the tip of the Island.  We started at Kaitaia and when the tide is out, you can drive right up the beach!

It was so fun! There are huge sand dunes at the end of the drive, and there were people sledding down the dunes on boogie boards and boxes.  It looked sooo fun!  I wanted to do it, but we didn't have any boards with us, and we were on a tight schedule to make it back to Auckland by Thursday.

We saw this little guy on 90 Mile Beach.  He wasn't very thrilled to see us! He got pretty mad!

 I had to stand back cuz he was giving me the evil eye and growling at me!

 James took our picture from the car window...

 After 90 miles of beach, we pulled back onto the main road by way of the river....we drove up the river for a few miles.  The dunes are on the left side....

It was a windy day at the Cape, but it was sooooo beautiful! Below is a picture of the very North tip of New Zealand.  It is where the Tasman sea meets the Pacific.  It was so interesting to see how one body of water came from the East and the other from the West.  They splash up where they meet.  The color of the water is actually different, too!  I could have stayed there for hours to just sit and watch this magnificent piece of nature.  It was awesome!

The light house on the cape

I wish I could have captured the view from this point....it was amazing!

Lonne and James

Where the two seas meet....

This is where the Tasman (on the left) meets the Pacific (on the right)

It would splash way up in the air where to two currents collided.

Mother Nature at its best! We loved it!

Leaving Cape Reinga....
there were rain clouds coming FAST, so we had to hurry up the trail! I was sad to leave...
knowing I will probably never see this part of the earth again:(

And then the clouds dumped on us!!

Lonne saw an older lady pushing her husband in a wheel chair up the steep hill...

he grabbed the wheel chair and RAN! It was pouring!!

The lady was so thankful that Lonne had helped her!

We droppped James back off in Kaitaia, and got our car and headed south.  

There was a ferry that crossed a bay along the way....

Every inch of the drive was absolutely beautiful! We were so glad that

President Lekias told us we could take these three days to tour the north part of the island!

There were miles of sand dunes that backed up to the Tasman Sea.  We were thinking how fun it would be to have our Polaris Razer and fly all over those dunes!

(Reminds me of Napolean Dynamite!) Grandma at the Dunes!  Ha!

We drove through the Kaori Forest.  It was amazing!  Pictures just don't do it justice at all.

The sun was going down, so the trees were shadowed.  Some of the Kaori Trees were HUGE!!! They are thousands of years old.  The Kaori wood is the most valuable wood on the island.  It is protected now, so they can only use the dead trees in the swamps for carvings etc...

Thursday, we toured around Auckland.  We wanted to go to the top of the space needle, but there were so many clouds that we wouldn't be able to see the view, so we opted out.  Then after we drove away, the clouds parted, and it was a beautiful day! Dang!  That's how it is in New Zealand...the weather changes so fast!  They say you can have four seasons in one day, and they mean it!! 

We've experienced it!  

We had lunch down town.  Auckland is a neat city....It's very multicultural.

There aren't very many Maori people in the city.  We were so thankful we had

served all of our mission out in the country!  We're so glad we got to meet so many wonderful Maori people.  They treated us so kindly and accepted us as one of their own! We are going to

miss all of our Maori friends! 

Friday morning we took all of our suit cases to the mission office.

We were afraid the airline might not let us take the Taiaha (spear) home (the one Hoani gave Lonne),

but Sister Nelson in the office found a tube long enough to wrap it up in.  We weighed all of our bags.

We had to box up a few things because our suitcases were too heavy.

It was quite the process!  It took us ALL morning!!

Taking some last pictures at the mission office....

This is the mission board....they were getting ready to take our picture off the board.

It made me cry:(

President and Sister Lekias took us to lunch at a neat restaurant right on the North Shore of Auckland 

The views were amazing! We had a fun visit with them...it was the first time we had them all to ourselves!  We had lots of fun and laughs.  They are wonderful people!  I sure hope we see them again.

They promised us that they would come over for conference and we would get together....

Saying our last good-byes at the mission office....

I just had to get a picture of Lonne with Elder Kafusi! He's huge!  

He was the Assistant to the President.  He will be playing for BYU when he gets home...

We can't wait to go watch him!

Lonne is handing the car keys back to Elder Nelson...

He is in charge of all the cars and apartments in the office.  He has a huge job!!

We sure learned a lot about how a mission runs, and how complicated it is!!!

Just keeping all those cars straight is a full time job!!

When we got to the airport, the Haywards were there to say good-bye to us!

They drove all the way from Gisborne to see us off!  It is about an 8 hour drive!

It was a very tearful goodbye....not fun.

We cried all the way down the ramp and onto the plane.  

I knew it would be hard to leave, but I didn't realize it would be THAT hard!

I MADE Nara smile for my picture...we were all having a hard time  putting a smile on our faces!

And that's the last thing we saw....

We cried as we flew away from this beautiful country and these beautiful people.

The flight home was as good as it could be....

The Air New Zealand planes are beautiful!  The food is pretty good, and each seat has it's

own entertainment system...kind of like an ipad.  I watched about 4 movies and then got some sleep...

We had a small lay-over in Los Angeles, where we boarded a Skywest flight to St. George...

WE"RE HOME!