Tobogganing in Summer!

Giant Te Paki Sand Dunes

Andrew and I didn't want to miss out on the winter tradition of tobogganing, so we stopped at the Te Paki sand dunes on our drive north to Cape Reinga. Te Paki was, at one point, separated from the mainland of New Zealand until the sand blew in and slowly formed land between the Cape and the mainland of New Zealand.

After a day of sandboarding

The long trek up the sand dunes

Ready to go down the hill

We had a picnic lunch in the car before heading up into the dunes. We thankfully learned our lesson from our last attempt at a beach/sand picnic and ate away from the sand so that we did not end up eating literal 'sand'whiches.

It wasn't too sunny in the morning so the sand was still cool enough to walk on barefoot. I can hardly imagine doing this in the middle of summer if the sun had been beating down all day! The sand was also incredibly soft, so it was nice to walk in without any shoes on.

Andrew and I climbed up into the dunes and looked for a good spot to go sandboarding. A good hill, no steep drops at the bottom, and a nice long runout path for slowing down. The sand moved as we were walking, which made walking rather difficult and tiring, but it was a lot of fun. The dunes stretches as far as the eye could see in one direction and ended abruptly at a forest in the other direction! It was somewhat disorienting walking amongst the dunes since everything was so uniform. I was glad to have the forest on one side to provide some sense of direction.

We eventually found a good spot and slid down. The only problem was that Andrew's board didn't slide! Apparently a wood bottom body board is not that great on sand. The plastic bottom one worked great though! It was quite funny watching him scoot his way down the hill since he was sliding off the board faster than it was sliding down the hill. After that first attempt we took turns with the board that actually worked. The climb back up the hill felt longer each time; the last time, Andrew climbed up without a board, saying he would find a way down. He ran! The entire way down the hill! It kept looking like he was on the verge of going for a tumble, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet the entire way down.

After the boarding, we rinsed off in the creek and walked down the creek to find a geocache. The creek apparently also doubles as a road! It is the access road between the main highway to the Cape and the highway that runs up the beach.