During the flight’s descent into Auckland, I adjusted my watch to New Zealand time as the flight attendant’s voice announced details perhaps relevant to our arrival—you know, immigration and transit procedures, weather and time particulars. With Saturday, April 4, 10:30am—four hours ahead of Tokyo—established as arrival details, Beth and I wended our way around Auckland in our rental car and then meandered northward up the east coast. Late Saturday afternoon we settled in for the night at Waipu Cove. Sunday we continued our journey north along the east coast until we reached Kaitaia, the northernmost town with multiple retail and municipal structures, that afternoon.
Now, 90-Mile Beach--one incredibly long beach and also one of New Zealand's national highways--ranked at the top of our Northland to-do list with Cape Reinga following right behind. We also knew, though, that we would have to book a 90-Mile Beach and Cape Reinga excursion because rental car companies do not generally allow their vehicles to be driven on 90-Mile Beach; in other words, should you run into trouble on 90-Mile Beach while driving a rental vehicle, you own all costs involved with rescue, recovery and reparation for your own person and for the vehicle!
At our Kaitaia accommodation, we booked a full-day excursion—Cape Reinga via 90-Mile Beach—with a motel pick-up scheduled for 9:00 in the morning. Then we headed to the only serious grocery story in town to purchase picnic sustenance before commencing a wee jaunt, one suggested by the couple who ran our motel, to the southern end of 90-Mile Beach in time for sunset. With Greek salads, cookies, apples, and McDonald’s drinks (Beth indulged me with a drive-through detour on the way out of town) for dining purposes and an expanse of beach, endless sea, and a sky lit by a setting sun for viewing pleasures, what more could one ask for a memorable evening?
Monday morning we shuttled over to the McDonald’s for breakfast and had the establishment all to ourselves with the morning work crew all at our command, not even a vehicle in drive-through to divert their attention from us. Back at our motel, we finished packing our backpacks and moseyed over to the motel entrance to wait for our pick-up. Maybe five minutes or so later, the motel manager walked out. “Ladies, are you waiting for your pick-up already?” We nodded in the affirmative. “But, it’s only about 8:00. Your pick-up isn’t for another hour!”
Come to find out, New Zealand “fell back” to standard time Saturday night while Beth and I just continued to operate on daylight savings time all weekend long. It hadn’t made any difference to us or anyone else all day Sunday, but Monday played out differently. So, Sunday morning when I thought I awoke at 7:00 to begin this glorious run along a seemingly forever stretch of a virtually empty beach at Waipu Cove, I actually finished my run at about 7:00. And Monday morning when we awoke in time to be at McDonald’s by 7:30, we really arrived just after they opened.
After a good laugh with the manager, Beth and I puttered around for another hour in our motel room and bemoaned a missing hour of sleep. Then, at the true 9:00 hour, we had one more laugh with the motel manager when our pick-up arrived and he waved us off on our day’s adventure.
No wonder I had the beach at Waipu Cove all to myself...it was just after 6:00 in the morning!
We actually witnessed more than one vehicle stuck in the sand--usually at the entrance locations to the beach--and, on the Monday excursion, we viewed the remains of some vehicles that got stuck in quicksand on 90-Mile Beach.
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