YOLO New Zealand @ Sandboarding Fun

YOLO New Zealand @ Sandboarding Fun - Day 3

As usual, we woke up early in the morning and set off to our first activity of the day, that is, sandboarding fun at Opononi. As we approached the seaside settlements of Opononi, we noticed the immense sand dunes of Niua.

Opononi became famous in 1955-56 because of Opo the dolphin. This name was given to a young bottlenosed dolphin which throughout the summer of 1955 frequented the beach at Opononi, Hokianga, inviting repeated human contact and playing with bathers and children in a manner not previously recorded for a wild dolphin.

Opononi and its neighourboring sister Omapere offer a full range of accomodation and dinning options, making it a great base to discover the Waipoua Forest, New Zeland's largest Kauri rainforest.

Anyway, we had to ctach a boat across the harbour to the giant dunes for dune surfing. It was great fun but tiring to walk up the dunes at the same time. The beach was lovely with very little people around. We felt like this was our little private island! Look at our pictures and you will agree.

We next visited the Waipoua Forest to see New Zeland's largest Kauri rainforest. We had a lovely time walking in the nature's reserve and were pretty much delighted to see such a tall kari tree. It's really a pleasure to spend my time immersing myself in mother nature! This forest is a protected reserve and extra efforts were taken to protect its soil. Visitors had to thoroughly scrubbed their boots prior to entering the reserve.

We then headed towards the Orewa beach, our campsite for the night. Orewa beach is a sandy beach featuring a beach break with several peaks down the beach. This beach can be very busy in the summer with many swimmers around. Overall, I find this beach very picturesque and definitely nice for a beach stroll. Not to mentioned, Orewa is one of the top 10 holiday park in NZ with very clean bathing facilities and toilets. I am actually quite impressed that the beach and the entire park were kept clean with no litters sighted. Singapore has a long way to go before our East Coast or Pasir Ris park can be spotlessly clean as Orewa beach.

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