Last summer, during the Christmas holiday, we decided to go to Cape Reinga Lighthouse which is officially the northwesternmost part of the North Island of New Zealand which is accessible. At the cape, the famous Tasman see meets the Pacific Ocean which creates a whirlpool and can be visible from Cape Reinga light house. 

Theoretically, this is not the most northern tip of New Zealand (Northcape is the most northern tip but not accessible to the public as this is a scientific reserve!). So, the road ends at Cape Reinga. 😀

We had suddenly planned for the trip before 2 weeks to Christmas holiday period. But we were lucky enough to get accommodation. Our plan was to go to Whangarei first which is just around 2 hours drive from Auckland CBD. In Whangarei, we had stayed for a night and then on the next morning had started for Cape Reinga. 

We had started from Auckland CBD at around 11 am and then had reached Whangarei to our Airbnb around 1:30pm. Then had taken rest and our plan was to go to Paihia to see the sunset as Paihia was only 45-50 minutes trip from where we were staying. We came back from Paihia at around 9:30pm on the same day.

In the next morning, we had checked out from our Whangarei Airbnb and then started for Cape Reinga. As Kerikeri is on the way, we had planned to visit Rainbow falls which is one of the popular falls in the Bay of Islands. You can have a look at our Rainbow falls pictures and videos here. 

As Kaitaia is the last locality before Cape Reinga, we had booked our Airbnb at Kaitaia (we were bit nervous as there was a bush fire and the sky was covered with ashes as close as we went to our Airbnb!). We reached our Kaitaia Airbnb at around 6pm. As soon as we had reached our Airbnb, just left our luggage and headed to our final destination Cape Reinga Light House. It took us around 45 minutes to reach Cape Reinga Lighthouse. We had reached at around 7:30pm. When we reached at the carpark, we got the information that the carpark and the gate for the Cape Reinga lighthouse is only open till 9pm as it was summertime. We still had 1 and a half hour to roam around the place. 

From carpark to the lighthouse, the walk is around 12-15 minutes. You can see the lighthouse from the carpark but to reach there, you will have to walk. Once we had reached the Light House the environment was amazing! You can see the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet and create a giant whirlpool.