Ahipara - CAPE REINGA!

Our journey was coming to an end, we wish it could go on. A part of us were all looking forward to getting home and catching up with everyone but also a part of us didn't want this adventure to finish. Ending meant back to reality, work, school, time schedule, after school activities and just generally riding the treadmill life again. Hopefully by experiencing what we have this year will make us change things on our return to home?!

We soaked it all up as this was our last stage, a time to reflect and reminisce on the last 365 days.

Our runway was finally running out. We'd done a re-stock in Kaitaia to keep us going for the next 10 days. Once at the top of the North Island we then wanted to spend some time at Kapowairua - Spirits Bay to take a breather and just appreciate what we'd achieved, so we loaded the grandparent's car with some yummy treats and good food to keep us going for 10 days.

We set off from Ahipara on the 27th of December. Luckily 90 Mile Beach is not actually 90 Miles but 54 miles or 88kms. For us it was about 76kms along the beach to Te Paki Stream. We then had to exit here as it was virtually impossible to get bikes over the last bit of track up to the Cape. Although we had certainly had a good look at this trail on topographical maps to see if we could make it possible. We figured maybe with fresh legs and no trailers maybe it was achievable, but we were now certainly pretty exhausted, and kids sure didn't want the long way around, they had done enough of that!

We had planned 3 days riding along 90 Mile Beach averaging approximately 30kms a day and then a day to ride the last 18kms along State Highway One to Cape Reinga. Originally, we had planned to hit the cape mid Dec to avoid the crowds but on our new schedule thanks to Covid lockdowns we were due to hit the cape right after Christmas and possibly the busiest time of year! But we were just thankful that'd we'd manage to get this far.

We were fairly loaded, as we also carried boogie boards along with us! Gran and Grandad John joined us from Ahipara, it was exciting, you could actually see the top of 90 Mile Beach and the curve of 90 Mile was a neat site to see. The thrill of riding on the beach was magnificent, everyone was buzzing, and it is surprisingly easy going. We had hit the beach 3 hours before low tide, so estimated that we had 6 hours to complete our 30kms of riding for the day. We were averaging around 13kms/hr but with many stops to either chat to locals fishing or a bit of boogie boarding and swimming we were averaging more like 6kms/hr!

We stopped and admired the local's surfcasting. Mahe was intrigued as they also had a drone to carry out the line. The locals were intrigued with our adventure, thought we were a little crazy but fascinated all the same. While we were busy chatting, cars were forever cruising past, some in relaxed holiday mode while others in their PlayStation racing car version. What we hadn't realised was that Mahe had left his bike out a little further into the beach road and a car had come within millimetres of it, just missing it thank goodness. We looked at the tyre marks and realised just how lucky the bike had been. It was a lesson learnt. We certainly didn't want bikes damaged or written off way up here!

We rolled into Hakatere lodge and campsite which was marked by a large pole sticking out of the sand dunes, it had been a big day of riding, surfing and dealing with the heat. The campsite was a welcome site, just tucked off the beach with a very small communal kitchen. Shade was hard to come by up here thou, so we made the most of the cold showers to cool us down. Gran and Grandad joined us again at the lodge, managing to secure a cabin for a few nights. Mahe spent most of the afternoon enjoying a bed until the grandparents turned up. It wasn't much cooler in the cabin, but it sure beat the heat of the tent out in the full sun. Luckily the next few days were forecasted for a cool southerly, so the temperatures were going to be around 23 degrees instead of in the high 30's.

Out of Haketere the next morning, we were off again enjoying the hard sand and buzzing being back on 90 Mile and getting closer to our destination. We had a light southerly wind which felt amazing on our backs, and we sure appreciated the tail wind. We spent a fair amount of time stopping and chatting to locals and sand boarding. Kids enjoyed a refreshing swim in the Tasman Sea, excited to jump the waves and be in the water.

This was fun, however we quickly learnt that 90 Mile Beach is only ridable at certain tides. We had noticed during lunch that the tide was definitely rising a bit more than we had hoped, but we stayed hopeful and reassured ourselves it was still a good 3-4 hours before high tide. We said our goodbyes to Gran and Grandad and left each other fairly confident that they wouldn't have any issues getting back as it appeared that they had plenty of beach! We later found out they had an interesting time.

So, after spending a bit too long playing, swimming & enjoying a cruisy bike ride along a beautiful beach in the Far North...our high tide eventually crept up a bit too much! For Mahe this was a great challenge to see if he could keep his speed up through the soft sand. Our visibility was very low, we could barely see 300m in front of us. At one point we had completely lost sight of Mahe as he powered through the soft sand and disappeared into the mist! Meanwhile we tried to ride then push through the soft sand, all struggling with keeping our wheels turning. We eventually caught up to Mahe after he was stopped in his tracks and was sick of battling the soft sand as were we. After 2 hours of pushing and contending with the soft sand, the tide pushed us more and more into the dunes, so it was decided to set up camp in the sand dunes instead of battling for another 7kms to The Bluff Camp. Adrian hesitated as camping in the sand can ruin your gear, but we really had no other choice.

We knew that 7kms would take us just 30 minutes in the morning, at the rate we were going with pushing, it could take two to three hours. At the time the weather was misty & rainy but calm, the kids enjoyed playing in the sand dunes and we attempted to clean the sand off the bikes which was a complete waste of time with a storm brewing.

We tried to keep majority of the sand out of the tents so washed the kid's feet before they entered the tent for the night. We laugh about this now as that was clearly not necessary!

At 3am.....the wind decided to blow!! When we had set up camp, we had tried to hide behind the sand hills, as there was wind forecasted but we had never imagined that it would be as bad as it was. We had a full-on sandstorm hit us - the tents were flattened by the force of the wind, the tent flies flapped endlessly, and sand blew through all the tiny mesh holes which filled the tents with millions of specks of sand.

We attempted to hold the poles, on each strong gust, hoping they wouldn't snap. It was Charlie's night for his own tent, but he was soon extracted to get in with Mahe and Stef. His tent was literally flattened, and we had visions off Charlie being blown away with the force of the wind! Poor wee man had been awake for some time and was quite frightened by the ordeal. He had called out to us a few times but with the wind whistling and tents flapping we didn't hear him! Adrian went out and attempted to tie the tents down with the bikes as the pegs were useless, we eliminated Charlie's tent from the sandstorm and attempted to get a few more hours sleep hoping the tent poles would hold up in the wind. Our comfy sleeping bags felt more like being wrapped in sandpaper with particles of sand getting blown through the mesh, it felt like steel nails hitting your skin, therefore very difficult to sleep! But at least we had the kids nearby, and no one in a tent by themselves with Charlie and Mahe with Stef and Jazz with Adrian.

It was one of those nights you couldn't wait till daybreak. As the light crept in, the wind still blew but at least we could assess the damage and make a plan for the day. We woke up with sand filled tents....2cms deep in places! The look on the boys faces in the morning was priceless.......they couldn't work out how all the sand managed to get in! We love our lightweight mesh tents but, in a sandstorm, they are very impractical! The bikes were covered- everything was covered - we got well and truly sand blasted - we were just glad this was the end of the trip and not the beginning! We tried to shake out the sleeping bags as best we could as sand can literally ruin them, same with the thermarests but it was near impossible to get it all out. The bikes had to be dug out, they were covered with a good deluge of sand. The decamping was certainly a challenge! But we just needed to pack up quickly and get out of there and find some shelter. We were all a bit gobsmacked and shell shocked about what had just happened but had to laugh that our adventure was not over yet even though we were just two days away from finishing our 7month journey. Luckily the strong wind was a southerly giving us a good push up 90 Mile Beach. We decided that eating breakfast would be like eating sandpaper, so it really wasn't an option, even though the kids were starving. We just needed to get going and find shelter.

It took us fifteen minutes to do our 7kms to Bluff Campsite, we were cruising at 28kmp/hr. We thanked the weather gods for the southerly! If it had been a northerly, we would have needed to find some good shelter and hunker down for the day. But luckily luck was on our side with a tail wind all the way to Te Paki Stream and we had the tides spot on.

Near the Bluffs Campsite we sheltered in the lee of the rocks to shake the sand off ourselves and our food. Breakfast was quick to make the most of the wind that was still at our rear. The bluffs are a popular spot for fishing and access to the beach is very accessible, so we were back amongst the motorbikes and 4W4 vehicles.

It was fast going once back on the bikes, and it was the best tail wind we had experienced all year.

By lunch time we'd made it to Te Paki stream, the site of the giant sand dunes, we completed our 35kms in just over 2 hours.

The size of the dunes were impressive, stretching for as far as the eye could see. The kids had been mad keen to sand board at Hokianga but as we were short on time, we assured them that the Te Paki Giant Sand dunes will be much better and bigger. They were totally fizzing at the size of the dunes, eager to get there to get sand boarding.

The ride up the Te Paki Stream was a pleasant sandy road which crossed the stream many times. We met Gran and John once again who had walked to see us. "Why no bikes today?", the kids asked. We had been expecting to see them on the beach, but it turned out the tides of the day before had caught John and Gran out as well; they were forced to carry and push their bikes back in the sandstorm that day! And now the bikes had seized. Grandad John's electric bike had seized from the salt and the sand, so they spent four hours pushing and struggling their way back to Hukatere where they were staying. With the visibility being so poor that day they had had an interesting time getting back after leaving us at lunch. With John's chain coming off numerous times and then losing each other in the mist to not being able to find the lodge! They eventually got there but not without a struggle. The kids enjoyed swapping stories and we had a great laugh about both of our adventures on 90 Mile Beach with a changing tide and a sandstorm.

The time on the beach had been amazing and certainly one to remember! But we were glad to be off the sand as our already worn-out bikes were slowly seizing up from the salt.

The afternoon was spent running up and down the Te Paki Giant sand dunes and enjoying a good afternoon feast with the grandparents. The sand was hot, the place was crowded with people, but the kids had been looking forward to this for so long, so they were absolutely loving it. Making new friends on the way and boarding down the slopes into the creek below to cool off. We are sure they would have climbed the height of Tapuae-o-uenuku again by the time the day was out.

After discussing our freedom camping options for the night at Te Paki, Charlie said to Gran, "look where we are sleeping tonight, it says, no camping, but Mum and Dad said we are going to sneak in there when everyone else has gone".

This had been a trend in places for our bike tour. Cycling with kids at times meant we couldn't always make the required distances to regular campsites. Freedom camping is something we had grown up with, and we felt justified that we always left the camp how we had found it if not better. We had toilets right there and had access to water, so we figured we weren't having an impact and there weren't any other options.

Throughout our Northland leg we had come across plenty of New Zealand Police Officers. They were up here on duty to help with the lockdown restrictions, they had been arranged before the lockdown restrictions were eased so were deployed anyway. Majority of them had never been to this part of New Zealand before so were basically enjoying a holiday while chatting with local communities and making sure folks obeyed the Orange Traffic Light settings because of COVID -19.

The kids had spotted them on the dunes in the early evening with no sandboards, so we encouraged the kids to ask if they'd like to use ours. We figured this might help with our situation of illegal freedom camping! They kindly obliged and had a great laugh with the officers, and we enjoyed having a chat, they didn't have any problem with where we were camping. It probably helped that they were quite taken back hearing that Charlie was just 7 and biking the length of New Zealand! On ya Charlie!

The evening was stunning. We hiked up to the Sand dune summit which overlooked 90 Mile Beach. As this was our last night on our bike journey, we savoured the moment and enjoyed the sunset together, we couldn't believe that this was it. After seven months of biking our trip was coming to an end, even though we felt excitement, we were apprehensive about actually hitting Cape Reinga as it meant that this journey was about to end.

Once down off the summit, we set up the tents quickly, but the mosquitos were up there with the worst we'd encountered since Alaska. The humming of thousands of little blood suckers had us in a frantic hurry to get into our tents for our last night.

Our last day was a mixture of emotions. How often can you take 365 days and just live it in the present with your kids. Charlie clicked his speedo on for the day. He was at 4488 kms. "Mum, Dad I only have to bike 12km and I've done 4500km. Luckily for Charlie we had approximately 14kms to go to Cape Reinga.

The ride out of Te Paki Stream was a good steady climb to get back up onto State Highway One. Gran and Grandad followed us on the Highway for safety. The road was frantic, it was the 30th of December, so it was hectic. We were annoyed at ourselves for not realising this earlier as we could have left at daybreak to beat the crazy traffic.

All that ran through our heads was we haven't ridden this far to be taken out by a car with less than 1% to go. It was a nervous 14km full of concentration. Majority of cars had respect for cyclists, but every now and then the odd car would remind you how kiwis love to drive in a style that the road belongs to them and no-one else! We did have folks pull over to cheer us on which certainly all gave us the warm fuzzies. The road to the cape for those last 14kms was hilly and narrow but as the ocean crept closer and closer, we were slowly making ground to Cape Reinga. Around each corner the view was truly outstanding.

As we entered the carpark, we were blown away by the amount of people cheering us on! Could have been the fact that Grandad John went ahead alerting folks of what we had just accomplished. It was hard to stop the tears rolling down the face as we entered the pathway down to Cape Reinga. The clapping and cheering were beyond belief, we had never expected that and never expected that many people!

Cape Reinga itself is a sacred site so you are not permitted to eat down at the lighthouse. Because of this we had a few nibbles before we headed down, we had people crowding around us asking a million and one questions. We were ecstatic that we had made it but really just wanted to get away from the crowds and have our time at the lighthouse.

We were asked to walk our bikes down because of the pathway being so busy, so as we headed 300m down to the lighthouse, we were overwhelmed by the masses of people. Many of them congratulated us on our achievement. As we approached the last few metres to the Cape Reinga Lighthouse, we had an applause from the crowd which again brought tears to our eyes. Jazz was embarrassed by it as all eyes were on us! It was a moment to remember! It was certainly a feeling of accomplishment arriving at the Cape Reinga Lighthouse, we'd done it! The grandparents were there to congratulate us, and phone calls streamed in from family members, it was a fantastic feeling. It was the end of yet another adventure. And we were all absolutely exhausted!

It is a remarkable achievement by Jazz, Mahe and Charlie. We are immensely proud of them.

It really is absolutely incredible on just how much kids are capable of if they have the opportunity.

The determination and dedication from the three of them have been amazing throughout our adventure. There were days that were so tough that they could have thrown in the towel but there was no way they were giving up on their goal of completing the length of New Zealand by bike!

When Covid started messing with our plans back in October- we mentioned to the kids that we could re word our mission to 'Bluff to Cape Colville' (Tip of the Coromandel). Wow did we get a response!! There was no way they weren't going to get to Cape Reinga!! We were well impressed by their commitment to this mission so had to make sure we could make it work! We were getting pretty good at amending our plans and dealing with logistics so luckily, we pulled it off!

We'd done it, completed our mission of biking the length of New Zealand with our three children!