A bitter good bye.

I'm not sure who decided it was a good idea to let four Americans go on a road trip without a Kiwi, in New Zealand, where everything closes at 5 and they drive on the left side of the road. Never the less, on Friday at a bit past eleven Mark from West Virginia, Andrea from Oregon, Kaytee from Ohio, and Carly from California hit the road. The plan for the weekend was to do Bay of Islands on Friday, 90 Mile beach on Saturday, and Cape Reinga/Kauri forest/home on Sunday.
Kaytee driving on the wrong side of the road. Scary!

One we started out our plans changed a bit. We got to Bay of Islands too late to do a tour, which was how we wanted to experience it, so we decided to visit the Kauri forest then continue to Kaitaia, where our 90 Mile Beach and Cape Reinga tour would leave from, and spend the night their. We stopped for fish and chips, then headed out of town. Our first stop was the Kauri forest where we visited Tāne Mahuta, which translates into 'Lord of the Forest'. This is the oldest known Kauri tree, estimated to be about 2000 years old. It has the following measurements:
Trunk Girth  13.77 m
Trunk Height  17.68 m
Total Height  51.2 m
Trunk Volume  244.5 m3
Me with the Lord. We're pretty tight.

 Kaytee and I also got really excited about a tree that had a fuzzy spot on it.

Mark and I at what we decided was the 'Union Tree'. First he wouldn't hold my hand, so then I didn't let him hug me. We finally decided to be friends.

Unfortunately for the rest of our trip, my mates claim I angered the Lord of the Forest by expressing my desire to climb it. I didn't, but supposedly the threat was bad enough. After spending some time with Tane Mahuta we headed back out of town in the direction of Kaitaia, where we were to spend the night. What we didn't plan for, was the gas station in the nearest town closing at 7:00, and us arriving at 7:30. This misfortune was, of course, because of my angering the Lord of the Forest. With our gas light on, we headed to the next town, which turned out to be far away-and didn't make it. We stopped in the middle of no where, and Mark and I began meeting some locals. We went and talked to one lady who told us the nearest open gas station was about 30 minutes away, and closed at 9:00 (at this point it is around 7:45). We thanked her for her help and headed to another person's house, who we noticed owned a tractor and boat. At this house we met our life saver Conrad, who just happened to have a 25 L of gas he sold us and siphoned into our car. We were out of there by 8:15, and made it to the Shell station with 15 minutes to spare. Our only complaint was that they had already unlocked the bath room and wouldn't open it back up. We filled up the car, then stood behind the boot and ate our dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and peaches, and finally headed to Kaitaia, where we got to our hostel for the night and went to bed, thanks to Mark for his driving on windy, unlit roads so late at night.

Here we are on 90 Mile Beach (which is actually only about 56 miles long)

Getting ready to slide down the hill!

Kaytee caught me napping on the bus. How could I be sleeping with such a beautiful view in the background???

We were getting picked up in the morning at 9 for our 'Sand Safari' tour, so we got going early (for us) and headed out on a bus, complete with 4 wheel drive. After stopping to pick a few more people, our tour began. We drove on the actual sand along 90 mile beach, racing the tide. We stopped a few times for photos and to sled down the sand dunes on little plastic sleds (I can't remember what this is called), which was super fun. We then headed to a different beach where we had lunch, and they even had a vegetarian option! We then headed out again, and went to Cape Regina, which is the Northern most point in New Zealand! After this we stopped by a beautiful white sand beach, then to an old Gumdiggers park. We got to see a silver fern, the symbol of the All Blacks rugby team, as well of lots of cool old sites from the gum diggers. Our final stop was at a shop where they sold things made of old Kauri trees that have been dug up.
Here are all of us in front of the Light house at Cape Regina 

 Mark and I at the Northern most part of New Zealand!

We made a pit stop for ice cream =)

We arrived at our hostel exhausted and all ready to crash, when we received some unfortunate news. Nearly all of us had text messages or voice mails from someone saying Mark's little sister had e-mailed them and he needed to contact his family ASAP. I won't go into detail, but I would like to ask for prayer for Mark and his family, because his father suffered a heart attack and died. After this we went straight back to Albany, where we rushed to the airport to try and get Mark a flight. The flight we were trying for, at 11 that night, didn't end up working out, so we took him back to our flat. He got a chance to pack up everything properly (our friend Matt had done his best to get things together while we were driving), and we spent one last night and morning with him, then he headed home to West Virginia Sunday afternoon. We all miss him, he is my best friend over here, and wish that things hadn't happened like this, and that he could still be here. It is still unclear if he is going to be coming back to finish the semester or stay and be with his family this term.