The far north

Well, it's Thursday - probably - and I am all set up in a town called Rawene on the west coast of the Northland of the North Island. Yesterday was a fun and interesting one. After consulting with the locals regarding the possibility of getting off ninety mile beach with my bike intact, I decided to take a bus up there instead! However, since it is still early in the season over here, the "bus" turned out to be a Toyota Land Cruiser four wheel drive thingy, with only four of us on it. This type of tour is usually about NZ$450, but we got it for NZ$60 - nice bargain!
Well, ninety mile beach is enormous, even when you're belting up it at in excess if 70mph (these crazy Kiwi's). Stopped off a couple of times on the way up to be astounded by the general immense size of the beach, before leaving by the only route, up a quick sand river. Remember, this beach is supposed to be a highway! The driver told me that if you stopped for about 4 seconds when driving up the river, you would lose your car. Given the leftover pieces of buses which we saw on the beach, I was not inclined to doubt him.
This was followed by hurtling down huge sand dunes, head first, on boogie boards. Now that's fun - apart from hiking up the dunes first.
Then swiftly off to Cape Reinga, the most northerly point, the meeting of the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea and a very sacred place to the Maori. It's quite spectacular and fortunately all protected land. Via small deserted sub tropical coves, we wended our way back to Doubtless bay, where I was camped out.
The landscape up here is ever changing and always wonderfull. At times it is flat pasture land and then 20 minutes later it feels as though you are in the foot hills of the alps, except for the sub tropical bush which covers the hills and mountains.
Tomorrow it looks as though I will be heading south to meet up with Sarah, Andy and Kate (Sarah's sister) for the weekend camping by some lakes. After that, I will come back up north a little way to visit the Kauri forests. More of that later. For now, take care one and all.
Oh yes - for the "mystery VFR800 owner" more bike details follow on from your comment . . . .