East Cape lighthouse and the first light of morning

For years, as we have stayed with our family here at Ohope Beach on the Bay of Plenty, we have looked out to what seems a mythical line of land that stretches far, far out toward the horizon.  East Cape forms the eastern boundary of this vast bay.  Meg and I have long wanted to explore what lies beyond our sight.  So, we followed the ever twisting, ever rising and descending, narrow road that goes around this cape.  Beaches and coves beyond numbers came into view and then were left behind.  Our destination was the small town of Te Aroroa, from where a gravel road goes out to the East Cape lighthouse, the most eastern part of mainland New Zealand--where the sunrise first reaches the country.

We got up early at our motel in Te Aroroa, five fifteen to be exact, and drove in the dark, past cows and horses in the road, past a few narrow drop offs, to reach the trail up to the East Cape lighthouse.  Seven hundred and sixty steps later (yes the guidebook gave us that specific number), we were there with five other viewers.  Purple turned to pink to red, to yellow, and the sun arrived.  We had nothing to do with "calling" the sun to rise.  Yet, its rising seemed uniquely special to us.  The event is daily, and to be there just to be there, creates an inner joy and tranquility.

East Cape lighthouse

East Cape, Te Aroroa

East Cape lighthouse, East Cape, Te Aroroa, Gisborne

East Cape Lighthouse, Te Aroroa, Gisborne

East Cape, Gisborne

East Cape Lighthouse

East Cape   (if you enlarge this image, you can just make out the lighthouse at a the top of the bluff)

Tongariro National Park from the air

Meg and I have visited the Tongariro National Park three times during our stays on North Island with our family.  Obviously, it is one of our favorite places.  To be in the center of three active volcanic mountains -- Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe, and Tongariroare, the summits of which are each sacred to the Maori people -- never ceases to awe and stimulate our senses. This national park was donated to the New Zealand government  in 1886 by the local Ngati Tuwheretoa Maori tribe in order to protect it permanently.  It is the oldest national park in New Zealand and the fourth oldest in the world.

On this visit we enjoyed absolutely still and perfectly clear skies and made a flight over the volcanoes.  As always, we enjoyed seeing country from above that we had seen up close through earlier hiking on the Tongariro Crossing. And, having stayed once at the Chateau Tongariro, we loved seeing its setting beneath Mt Ruapehu.

Mt Ruapehu crater lake, Tongariro_National_Park

Ketitahi_Springs, Tongariro_National_Park

Volcanic Flights, Mt Ruapehu, Tongariro_National_Park

Ngauruhoe, Tongariro_National_Park, Volcanic_Flights, Tongariro_Crossing

Mt Ruapehu, Chateau_Tongariro, Tongariro_National_Park

Crater lake Mt Ruapehu, Tongariro_National_Park

Mt Ngauruhoe, Tongariro_National_Park

Red_Crater_NZ, Tongariro_National_Park, Tongariro_Crossing

First light

During our stays in Ohope on the Bay of Plenty, North Island, Meg and I have looked out to the long crescent of land that extends toward the horizon in the east. The road along this East Cape twists and turns, sometimes high above the ocean, sometimes at beach level; sometimes close to the ocean, sometimes inland.  The drive is slow, highlighted by gorgeous bays and beaches, and most dramatically, the East Cape Lighthouse.  There, the sunrise first meets New Zealand, and actually is the second landfall from the International Dateline after the islands of Tonga (where Meg and I served in the Peace Corps) .

As Meg and I watched the sunrise Wednesday morning, we enjoyed these selections from Psalm 25 as we felt the power of the Lord's ever abiding gifts to us, His children:

East_Cape_lighthouse_NZ,  Bay_of_Plenty

East_Cape_lighthouse_NZ,  Bay_of_Plenty

Tongariro National Park

In 1887, Te Heuheu Tukino IV, then the paramount chief of Ngati Tuwharetoa, gifted the sacred peaks of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and part of Ruapehu, North Island, to the English people of New Zealand. This decision kept the land from being divided up and preserved the mana (prestige) of the Tuwharetoa people.

The original deed of gift created an area of 8,000 acres  consisting of three small circles around the main peaks. Over the years that followed, large-scale purchases of land were made by the Crown, so that when the Tongariro National Park Act was passed in 1894 the area was approximately 65,000 acres. This Park was the fourth in the world to be established.

Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe are two of the most active composite volcanoes in the world. In 1995 and again in 1996 Ruapehu erupted in spectacular fashion, sending clouds of ash and steam skyward and mantling the surrounding snow fields and forest with a thick film of ash.

Mt Ngauruhoe serves as Mt Doom in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings."  The Mordor scenes were filmed on the flanks of Mt Ruapehu, and the scenes of Gollum fishing were filmed at several nearby streams and waterfalls.

Château Tongariro, Mt Ngauruhoe

Tongariro National Park, Mt Ruapehu

Tongariro National Park, Mt Doom, Mt Ngauruhoe

Tongariro National Park, Ruapehu

Tongariro National Park, Mt Ruapehu

Tongariro National Park, Taranaki Falls

Tongariro National Park,

The most incredible gannet colonies of Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

Meg and I enjoyed five days of travel last week with friends with whom we had spent time in the Peace Corps.  Paul and Betty have lived in Australia for quite a time, and Mary is from northern California.  The two years in Tonga in 1968/69 were seminal experiences for us.  Even though we have not seen each other for years--raising families and developing professionally--we quickly shed the distances and enthusiastically shared many, many conversations.

We stayed in Napier, a remarkable town that rebuilt after devastating earthquake in 1931 in the art deco style of those times.  From Napier we went to Cape Kidnappers, so named after Captain Cook's Tahitian translator was kidnapped by Maoris when Cook sailed into the northern portion of Hawkes Bay in 1769.

Besides spectacular geology, Cape Kidnappers holds the only gannet colony in the world where you can get within ten feet of these magnificent birds. They live between 25 to 40 years, once they survive "childhood."  We watched as the youngsters flapped their wings in the gusting winds, wondering how surprised they would be to be suddenly airborne, navigating the tricky winds and figuring out to dive for fish to feed themselves instead of waiting for food to come out of their parents throats.

At about sixteen weeks, they fly off to Australia, a distance of twenty five hundred miles.  After a couple of years there, like many human Kiwis who cross the sea, they return to New Zealand to stay. The colony we visited overlooks Hawke's Bay. Thousands of acres of farmland were purchased and turned into a world ranked golf course.  The owners have also transformed the land into a nature preserve, removing and fencing out the many species of introduced mammals that have decimated the bird populations.  Numbers have steadily increased to 8,000 pairs, making Cape Kidnappers the largest and most accessible mainland population in the world.

If you do come to New Zealand, Napier should definitely be a place to visit! Oh, and I forgot to mention that some of the best New Zealand wines come from the Napier, Hawke's Bay region.

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

gannet, Cape Kidnappers, Napier, Hawkes Bay 

Searching for God

"I know that the fact that I am always searching for God, always struggling to discover the fullness of Love, always yearning for the complete truth, tells me that I have already been given a taste of God, of Love and of Truth. I can only look for something that I have, to some degree, already found.  How can I search for beauty and truth unless that beauty and truth are already known to me in the depth of my heart?….We were innocent before we started feeling guilty; we were in the light before we entered into the darkness; we were at home before we started to search for a home. "  Henri Nouwen 

Tongariro_National_Park, Mt_Ruapehu

Tongariro_National_Park, Mt_Ruapehu

His Creation, His Grace

“Our superficial, restricted self is uncomfortable and fights being revealed.  But deeper within us is the longing for God, placed within our true self by God.  We come to God as we are: caught by sin and longing for God; and we are always met by God’s grace and mercy.”  Wendy Wright

Ohope, BAy_of_Plenty, Whakatane