I was a few hours behind schedule after my car debacle, so I went straight to my campground at Taputaputo Bay.  I figured I’d set up camp and then walk the path from my campground to photogenic Cape Reinga.  This turned out to be an excellent decision.

Taputaputo Bay is a secluded white sand beach nestled between two rocky bluffs.  There were about half a dozen other campers at the campground…virtually all in rented campervans…a very popular way to see NZ apparently.  After setting up my camp, I threw on my backpack and headed up the bluff to the west.  It was not an easy climb, but I was rewarded with spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean crashing into the rocky shores a few hundred feet below me. 

The path hugged the edge at times so closely that I had to slow my pace to be sure I wouldn’t slip off, but I had to keep a pretty fast pace.  It was 5km (3.1 miles) to Cape Reinga from my campsite and I needed to get there, take some photos, and return before it got dark.  The signpost at the beginning of the track suggested that it would take 2.5 hours one way, which if I turned around the second I got to the cape wouldn’t get me back to my campsite before 8pm.  So I hurried a bit…but not near the cliffs.

I saw no one else on the hike.  This is one of the most touristed spots in New Zealand, and I was on a popular side hike, and I didn’t see anyone else.  I love that.  I did however, see a pack of wild piglets in the middle of my path.  After working on a pig farm, I know how big the sows can get, so I kept my distance and made my presence known so as not to startle her from the bush.  While on the farm, I was told that if I pig does attack me to either jump a fence or climb a tree…neither of which was nearby.  The piglets eventually snorted off into the brush without alerting their mother and I kept going.

After only an hour and fifteen minutes, I made it to the cape.  Although I’ve seen it in postcards and other travel brochures, it was still more beautiful than I thought it would be.  To the west, huge sand dunes, a sweeping beach, and some rocky outcrops bear the grunt of the waves from the Tasman Sea.  To the east, more rocky outcrops get hit with the Pacific Ocean.  And then right there the two bodies of water meet at sea, and there are violent currents visible from the clifftops.

The cape itself is sacred in Maori tradition as the point at which all souls leap off the land and into the ocean to return to Hawaiki, where their ancestors came from.  The whole area had a bit of a sacred feel to it.  There was a lighthouse, and one of those yellow signs that tells you how many kilometers to Sydney, Los Angeles, London, etc, but other than that there was nothing really.  Just wind and tide and cliffs, and at the very end of the northernmost tip sits a small tree in a place that it seems no tree should be able to grow.  According to the Maori, deceased souls use the roots of this tree to reach the ocean underworld and continue their journey home.  I found it to be kind of an eerie place…but also stunningly beautiful.

I spent a half hour or so walking around the cape, seeing the sights and soaking up the late afternoon sun, and then decided it was time to head back to camp.  The journey back was just as strenuous (up and down 500ft bluffs repeatedly) but also just as isolated and just as beautiful.  I made it back to the lovely Taputaputo Bay in time to make dinner before dark.  And then I fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing for the third night in a row.