NZ Day 14

May 19

Day – Stopped at Taupo Bay (almost ran out of gas), up 90-mile beach peninsula

Night – Tapotupotu Bay DOC campsite (Ui’s dream)

In the morning, Kyle and Silvia got on the road early.  They were going to stop over at Taupo Bay (about an hour away) for a quick surf and then continue on down the east side, the way we came up.  Jason and Hilary decided to go up the Peninsula to see the North Cape.  We elected to scoot over to Taupo Bay in hopes of jumping in the water briefly with Kyle and Silvia, but by the time we arrived (after a detour to restock at Pack-N-Save), they had already moved on.  For good reason, as the water was a mirrored surface pond.  To make matters worse, I had severely miscalculated the petrol level in the camper, and suddenly we found ourselves at the bottom of the Taupo Bay road with the fuel light on and a 40km uphill return to the nearest gas station.  I milked the van slowly, coasting whenever possible.  Somehow we crawled in to a fuel station on fumes and put in enough petrol to get us over to nearby (and cheaper) Kataia.

After a 90km (not mile) scoot up the peninsula, we met up with Hil and JV at the Tapotupotu DOC site.  The view from the top was spectacular, with swell lines kissing both sides of the bay and perfect A-frames breaking in the middle.  The mana of the area was very powerful.  We all felt it.  That night U’i had a dream….

U’I’s dream with the spirits of Tapotupotu, Te Rerenga Wairua:

I woke up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I remember it was dark, damp, cold, I couldn’t see anything.  As I stumbled out of the bathroom through tall grass, Jason yelled “Who’s there,” and shined his flashlight around the area.  It was a dim light however and he somehow missed me.  Ryan suddenly had seen that I had fallen in the grass and came out of the camper van to carry me.  (In real life, I still had a sprained ankle).  The dream fast forwarded to Ryan and I’s small camper van.  The table was out and Ryan, Jason and I were talking stories, lights all on, but Hilary was missing.  In the side window Hilary appeared, but was being held by a man, a tall man, strong build, tattoos on his chest area.  “Oh my gosh Jason!  Hilary is being taken hostage!”  We all turned to see this man, the darkness covered his face and he let Hilary go next to our camper van door.  “They don’t want us here! We need to go now!”  Hilary and Jason ran back to their camper van, which was a little ways up from our camper vans (mind you, the setting was the exact place where we parked our vans in the valley).  The warriors took out large shovels and began digging, digging, deep trenches around our tires so that our vans could not move.  “Ryan, start up the van!”  Desperately, Ryan started the van and tried to get out of the holes that were being dug.  There were two Maori men at this point.  The taller, muscular warrior was digging the trenches around Hilary and Jason’s van, which by this time had all their doors open and lights on, and the smaller of the two continued to dig the trenches that surrounded our tires.  It was pouring rain outside (in reality as well) and I remember peering out the window and saw the face of the Maori warrior, his eyes glared up at me, white…white as the moon, shimmering in it’s light…he had facial tattoos and tattoos on his chest (I drew the tattoos the next morning in my journal).  By now, both warriors had dug holes deep enough so that our tires were stuck.  Ryan challenged the warrior by placing his face directly in the face of the warrior, like facing each other for battle.  It was an intense feeling, I remember seeing Ryan stand up for our lives.  He continued to try to move the van out of the holes.  Finally I called out the window in Hawaiian “ ‘A’ole, ‘A’ole, ‘A’ole,”  “No, no, no.”  The warrior at our van suddenly stopped, looked at me, tilted his head in confusion like he understood what I was saying.  “ ‘O U’ilani ko’u inoa, “ “ ‘O U’ilani ko’u inoa,” “My name is U’ilani.”  Again he stopped and called something out in Maori to the warrior at Hilary and Jason’s van.  “No Maui mai au,” I screamed, “No Maui mai au!”  “I am from Maui.”  The warrior at our van stopped immediately, he understood what I had just said.  He uttered a phrase in Maori to the other warrior, I was trying to understand what was being said.  He took sand from the earth and threw it on the van, which arched like a rainbow and fell like hard drops of rain…then he bowed and they both disappeared into the night. 

After he disappeared, Ryan woke me up because I was screaming in my sleep.  He said it was words that he didn’t understand.  I told him my dream and drew the tattoos that I had seen on the bodies of the warrior…it wouldn’t be until the next morning when we all met Nick, the Department of Conservation officer who came by our vans to collect money, where I would understand why the warriors were digging so intensely…in the night…

 Tapotupotu Bay A-frames

View from the campsite