Feb. 16, 2009
Northland -- after the Wreck
Well, after the scare of the van wreck/accident, I pretty much lucked into one of the most kick-ass days of the trip.
First, I discovered a secret surf spot not listed in the NZ Surf handbook (the Bible, baby!). You drive out through tree (paper) plantations, and at the end, there were perfect chest-high A-frames on a consistent sandbar. No other surfers, but a few Maori and (of course) the ubiquitous dumb-looking Germans in the campervan. This was my "secret spot." the water was about 70 -- comfy in a 1 mil vest.
Triumphant over the secret spot score, I rolled into Te PAki, the last/northernmost town in NZ. This place makes Point Reyes Station look like Manhattan. This is the outback, and its a Maori thing , y'all.
Interestingly, I read in the guidebook that many Croats and Serbs moved to the Northland a century ago, b/c the white kiwis to the South shunned them, but the Maori to the north embraced them. There are, in fact, all sorts of "-itch" names up there, including the local buses. There are several half-Croat/ half-Maori descended kiwis that are famous authors, athlets, etc. Most interestingly, there was the fucking wierdest hybrid Croat - Maori church/temple thing. Just total alien shit.
Anyway, I am, in fact, Croatian royalty (at least, in my own head...lol.) My great-great grandfather Starcevitch is on the 100-dollar bill or something. Ask my Mom about this.
So I started mixing it up with the Maori at the local store, and asked where the "tarara" (mixed Croat-Maoris) were. They were impressed by my use of a Maori term. (Shit, it says this in a big box in the lonely planet guidebook, but your average white tourist is terrified -- completely needlessly - of the Maori, and so this was the first time any tourist had said anything.)
(Incidentally, Maori paranoia is rampant among all the young backpacker set.)
So, this old school Maori woman who could speak surprisingly little English dropped me the 411 on how to get to the surf spot called "The Bluff". Basically, you gotta drive out to the hinter to the house #314, where there is a gate that appears locked (and no signage). then, you introduce yourself to the Maori dude there and ask if you can pass, b/c it's Maori land under some kind of legally-complex stewardship scheme.
....anyway, you get out there, and lo and behold, there is a tombolo peninsula (sand connected a headland to the mainland -- gets covered at high tides) that I simply call "the Island."
There was surf on the south side of the Island, and I tapped it while a couple of Maori fished off the point a stone's throw from me. After the surf, I explored the Island, and that's when things started to get really dope.
I spent several hours exploring the Island, and at the risk of you thinking im losing it down here, the Island was so exactly like Punta Cabras in Northern Baja that I am possibly entertaining the possibility of some kind of master/intelligent design. no shit.
Hovey and I shared some of our biggest life experiences at Pta. Cabras when we were younger, and he wrote his geology college thesis about the rocky shoreline there. I've since re-visited with many of my closest peops, including my father, Eric, Ayo, and Aran. I've also gone there myself many times. Pta. Cabras is a very special place and I have said more than once that I would have my ashes dumped there.
The Island was a near perfect replica of Pta. Cabras. It had the same keyhole beaches/rock joints, where waves push in and create shell graveyards at the end. The same turret-like mini-mound/hills, with perfect vantage points of the Island. The same hot tub size tidebools. The same succulents and rust colored soil. The same tire tracks in the succulents. Hov, I got a million photos for you.
As the day wore on and the tide started to creep, and I knew the sand bridge back to the mainland was going to get covered up, I didn't give a fuck that camping was prohibited, the land was Maori, or anything. I had found My Spot and I was staying on the Island.
Now this is where you are going to think im REALLY losing it, but Hov can vouch on this one. When you are sitting around at night at Pta Cabras, you hear The Voices (whether you are smoking dope or not). This is an established thing that is not in dispute. You hear all sorts of shit, actually. a group of people laughing. glass breaking. a low scream. etc etc.
The practical, SCIENTIFIC explanation is that you are sitting on this big piece of rock with a thousand porous holes opening onto the ocean; the play of wave action and tides means there is a constant source of strange, gurgling noises. (Just like the wave organ in SF).
For example, sometimes at Pta. Cabras you will experience a seismic THUMP! feeling. This is when the water slams through a keyhole or a blowhole in the rock. It was exactly the same on the Island.
Well, I think you know where this story is going. As night fell on the Island, sure as shit, the noises began. I think many people -- trapped on the island by tide -- would have shat themselves. the first sound that i heard sounded like a horse whinnying. For one second, I was freaked, b/c I had scoured the Island, and there were no fricking horses!!!
Then, I just thought, "Oh yeah, The Voices. Just like Pta. Cabras." {yawn} and it was all good. I slept the best that night of the whole trip. I woke up at one point and the moon had light up all the zillions of brilliant white shell fragments around me, so bright that you could have read a newspaper -- which I once did at Pta. Cabras on a very, very similar night. But that, my friends, is another story.
Northland -- after the Wreck
Well, after the scare of the van wreck/accident, I pretty much lucked into one of the most kick-ass days of the trip.
First, I discovered a secret surf spot not listed in the NZ Surf handbook (the Bible, baby!). You drive out through tree (paper) plantations, and at the end, there were perfect chest-high A-frames on a consistent sandbar. No other surfers, but a few Maori and (of course) the ubiquitous dumb-looking Germans in the campervan. This was my "secret spot." the water was about 70 -- comfy in a 1 mil vest.
Triumphant over the secret spot score, I rolled into Te PAki, the last/northernmost town in NZ. This place makes Point Reyes Station look like Manhattan. This is the outback, and its a Maori thing , y'all.
Interestingly, I read in the guidebook that many Croats and Serbs moved to the Northland a century ago, b/c the white kiwis to the South shunned them, but the Maori to the north embraced them. There are, in fact, all sorts of "-itch" names up there, including the local buses. There are several half-Croat/ half-Maori descended kiwis that are famous authors, athlets, etc. Most interestingly, there was the fucking wierdest hybrid Croat - Maori church/temple thing. Just total alien shit.
Anyway, I am, in fact, Croatian royalty (at least, in my own head...lol.) My great-great grandfather Starcevitch is on the 100-dollar bill or something. Ask my Mom about this.
So I started mixing it up with the Maori at the local store, and asked where the "tarara" (mixed Croat-Maoris) were. They were impressed by my use of a Maori term. (Shit, it says this in a big box in the lonely planet guidebook, but your average white tourist is terrified -- completely needlessly - of the Maori, and so this was the first time any tourist had said anything.)
(Incidentally, Maori paranoia is rampant among all the young backpacker set.)
So, this old school Maori woman who could speak surprisingly little English dropped me the 411 on how to get to the surf spot called "The Bluff". Basically, you gotta drive out to the hinter to the house #314, where there is a gate that appears locked (and no signage). then, you introduce yourself to the Maori dude there and ask if you can pass, b/c it's Maori land under some kind of legally-complex stewardship scheme.
....anyway, you get out there, and lo and behold, there is a tombolo peninsula (sand connected a headland to the mainland -- gets covered at high tides) that I simply call "the Island."
There was surf on the south side of the Island, and I tapped it while a couple of Maori fished off the point a stone's throw from me. After the surf, I explored the Island, and that's when things started to get really dope.
I spent several hours exploring the Island, and at the risk of you thinking im losing it down here, the Island was so exactly like Punta Cabras in Northern Baja that I am possibly entertaining the possibility of some kind of master/intelligent design. no shit.
Hovey and I shared some of our biggest life experiences at Pta. Cabras when we were younger, and he wrote his geology college thesis about the rocky shoreline there. I've since re-visited with many of my closest peops, including my father, Eric, Ayo, and Aran. I've also gone there myself many times. Pta. Cabras is a very special place and I have said more than once that I would have my ashes dumped there.
The Island was a near perfect replica of Pta. Cabras. It had the same keyhole beaches/rock joints, where waves push in and create shell graveyards at the end. The same turret-like mini-mound/hills, with perfect vantage points of the Island. The same hot tub size tidebools. The same succulents and rust colored soil. The same tire tracks in the succulents. Hov, I got a million photos for you.
As the day wore on and the tide started to creep, and I knew the sand bridge back to the mainland was going to get covered up, I didn't give a fuck that camping was prohibited, the land was Maori, or anything. I had found My Spot and I was staying on the Island.
Now this is where you are going to think im REALLY losing it, but Hov can vouch on this one. When you are sitting around at night at Pta Cabras, you hear The Voices (whether you are smoking dope or not). This is an established thing that is not in dispute. You hear all sorts of shit, actually. a group of people laughing. glass breaking. a low scream. etc etc.
The practical, SCIENTIFIC explanation is that you are sitting on this big piece of rock with a thousand porous holes opening onto the ocean; the play of wave action and tides means there is a constant source of strange, gurgling noises. (Just like the wave organ in SF).
For example, sometimes at Pta. Cabras you will experience a seismic THUMP! feeling. This is when the water slams through a keyhole or a blowhole in the rock. It was exactly the same on the Island.
Well, I think you know where this story is going. As night fell on the Island, sure as shit, the noises began. I think many people -- trapped on the island by tide -- would have shat themselves. the first sound that i heard sounded like a horse whinnying. For one second, I was freaked, b/c I had scoured the Island, and there were no fricking horses!!!
Then, I just thought, "Oh yeah, The Voices. Just like Pta. Cabras." {yawn} and it was all good. I slept the best that night of the whole trip. I woke up at one point and the moon had light up all the zillions of brilliant white shell fragments around me, so bright that you could have read a newspaper -- which I once did at Pta. Cabras on a very, very similar night. But that, my friends, is another story.
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