A Trip to the Tip: Fog, Cloud, and a 2am Meteor at Cape Reinga.

birley1
Aug 16
9 min read

The fog rolled in just as the clouds began to break — again. For the third time that night I was locked in a stand-off with the sky above Cape Reinga, racing to catch a gap before the next wave of mist swallowed it whole. This is the kind of cat-and-mouse game you sign up for when you chase clear skies at the top of the North Island in winter. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'd always wanted to properly document these missions — the trips, the failures, the odd moments of magic — but between the day job and my own lack of motivation on the rare occasions I did have time, it never happened. So this is where I'm starting: an off-the-cuff trip to the very top of New Zealand, built around a scheduled work trip and a forecast window I couldn't ignore.

The Milky Way Core sitting nicely above the lighthouse - Cape Reinga

The Drive North

I was already booked to work up north, and the day before I left, I noticed a small gap of clear weather forecast for my arrival day. I decided to keep an eye on it — and if it held, I'd try my luck capturing some of the darkest skies in New Zealand, arguably the world.

I've made this drive many times, mostly for work, occasionally for pleasure, and it still takes my breath away every time. From Auckland it's about four and a half hours to Kaitaia and another hour and a bit to get all the way to the top from there, and the landscape keeps changing the entire way. Most people know the stretch between Auckland and Whangārei well — fewer venture much further than that, and that's exactly the draw for me. There's nothing like being surrounded by beauty with barely another soul around.

Past Whangārei you hit the choice every northbound traveller faces: the longer, more scenic coastal route, or the shorter, far windier road over the Mangamukas. Both have their own beauty, but the Mangamukas will test your stomach — as a driver it gets my insides churning, and as a passenger I'd expect it to turn you green. It's the faster option if time is tight; if it isn't, I'd take one route up and the other back, and lean toward the coast on a good weather day.

This time, with the clock against me, I took the Mangamukas and made it over with my stomach only just intact. From there it's a straight run to the top — turn right at the T-junction (left takes you to Kaitaia and Ahipara) and it's a clean shot all the way to the tip.

The drive from Auckland to Kaitaia

Te Paki Sand Dunes

Being a long drive, unless you leave at the crack of dawn, you arrive late afternoon — and in the middle of winter, that leaves precious little daylight. This wasn't meant to be an exploring trip, but I wanted to spend a little time at the giant Te Paki sand dunes, purely to scout whether an image I am chasing in a few weeks time might actually be possible from there.

One tip: the turn-off to the dunes sits on a sharp, blind right-hand corner and is easy to miss if you're not watching for it — GPS will usually flag it in time, but don't count on it. It's a short gravel road in to the car park, which sits by a small stream that snakes around and through the dunes. There are long-drop toilets and a grassy spot to relax if you want one. To reach the dunes proper you need to cross that stream — never more than ankle-deep in my experience, and slow-moving — so unless you're happy with wet shoes, take them off first. A small price for what's on the other side.

The dunes themselves are stark, beautiful, almost lunar — a pocket of pure desert wrapped in an oasis of green. Getting to the best vantage points means climbing steep faces of sand, and it's harder work than it looks. But standing in the middle of them, surrounded by nothing but sculpted sand and sky, gives you the strange sense of being dropped into a desert in the middle of nowhere — until you climb high enough to see the ocean sitting on the horizon. That contrast, standing on dry, desolate terrain with the largest body of water on Earth stretched out in the distance, still gets me every time.

While I was out there later in the evening I also ran a few readings on my Sky Quality Meter — I've started logging these at the places I shoot, and the dunes came in at 21.97, 21.94, 21.94 and 21.94, the darkest I've measured anywhere to date. The Milky Way core was low on the western horizon and about to set at the time, so it wasn't a factor sitting overhead for these readings and directly above me, for once seemed to be crystal clear and void of fog and cloud.

I hadn't planned to walk far, but as always I ended up deep in the dunes and up on the highest ridge I could find, chasing the shot I'd come to scout. It didn't line up exactly the way I'd hoped, but there's definitely something there worth coming back for. By the time I turned back toward the car, the sun was low, and the sky over the dunes had turned into a proper show — serious, sculpted cloud formations catching the last light before dark. I stopped to fire off a few frames before the light dropped away completely; the same sky that gave me that scene would turn against me a few hours later at the lighthouse, but for a few minutes up on the ridge, it was hard to beat. Full dark had set in by the time I reached the car. I changed into warmer clothes in the car park and pushed on toward the lighthouse, trying to claw back time — a twenty-minute drive, easy but winding.

So desolate yet so beautiful and vast - Te Paki Giant Sand Dunes

You feel so small because you are so small - Te Paki Giant Sand Dunes

A quick selfie on the walk back to the car as the sun set below the dunes

The Cirrus clouds flickered like and resembled flames across the sky

A little research on an idea I have for an image

The Darkest SQM reading I have captured to date at Te Paki Sand Dunes later that evening

Cape Reinga After Dark

I'd had a plan: catch the lighthouse at blue hour, then the Milky Way rising and arching behind it. The dunes had cost me too much time, and I arrived in full darkness — blue hour gone.

Visiting this place at night means having it entirely to yourself, which comes with its own weight. This is a deeply significant place, both culturally and spiritually, for Māori — it's where the wairua (spirits) are believed to depart from this world. You don't need to hold any particular belief to feel it. Out there alone in the dark, with nothing but wind and remoteness for company, there's a very real sense that you're not entirely by yourself. I've shot this location many times, day and night, and I've never once felt unsafe or even uncomfortable — but I do feel, every time, that I'm in the presence of something that came before me.

I moved fast, no time to waste, straight down to the lighthouse with the shot already planned in my head. The forecast had promised clear skies through the evening; the sky, as it always does out here, had other ideas. Cloud had been building through the afternoon and never burned off — by the time I reached the lighthouse, some patches were fully socked in, others wrapped in a thin veil of cloud. Not a clean patch of sky anywhere. I kept shooting anyway, chasing foreground images even without stars.

Then the fog arrived — thick, rolling in off the sea on top of the cloud already there. And then, just when I'd written the night off, it all broke: cloud parted, fog drifted clear, and I was staring up at a sky full of stars. What followed was an hour or two of cat and mouse — racing each clear patch before the next wave of fog or cloud swallowed it again. The lighthouse beam is bright enough that shooting with it lit rarely works, so I dropped to short exposures and higher ISO, timing my shots between sweeps of the light, and stitched wide panoramas to keep the noise down.

The conditions weren't what I'd have picked, but I walked away happy — and they gave me something I've never captured before. As the light swept through the moisture-heavy air, it threw beams straight down to the horizon across the ocean, more defined than I've ever seen them. Anyone can shoot a clear night sky; capturing something honest out of chaos like that takes a bit more work. Fanciful as it sounds, watching those beams sweep out across the dark water, it wasn't hard to imagine each one as a spirit making its journey out to sea.

One part of the plan didn't survive the night: the vantage point I'd hoped to scout for an upcoming image opportunity turned out to be too damaged to safely reach — storm erosion has taken a toll on several of the cliffside points up here over the last couple of years. I take calculated risks, but not blind ones in the dark. That shot isn't dead, just shelved — I may still be able to build it as a composite down the track.

I also ran the Sky Quality Meter at the lighthouse itself, catching a reading in the gap between each sweep of the light. Despite the cloud and fog drifting around — with the patch of sky directly overhead staying clear — I measured 21.80, 21.49, 21.74 and 21.70, with the Milky Way core sitting fairly high in the sky at the time. Cloud cover and all, this was one of the darkest skies I've measured to date. Hard to beat a place this remote for that.

A mobile phone image looking straight up at the lighthouse - Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga Lighthouse lit up with a starry sky in the background

The light beams from the lighthouse - made me think of the spirits leaving Earth

A constant struggle between cloud, fog and sea spray/moisture

I expected the readings to be darker but I suspect the fog and Milky Way core being almost directly above may have hampered the readings here

A yet to be edited panorama of the Milky Way arching over the Cape Reinga Lighthouse

Back to the Dunes, and a 2am Meteor

With the lighthouse beaten by cloud, I headed back to the dunes, catching one more break in the sky and firing off another panorama on the way. By the time I reached the car park, the sky had shut over completely, exactly as forecast — so I made peace with it, ate a very well-earned dinner, made a coffee, and sat with the sheer quiet of the place for a while.

I couldn't quite leave it there, though. With my stomach and coffee both sorted, I hiked back onto the dunes for one more idea — leaving a camera down by the stream on interval timer while I climbed to the ridge above and let it fire away automatically. It didn't come off: I misjudged my position in frame and got the exposure wrong for how dark it really was. Slightly annoying, but after the day I'd had, easy to file under experience. I packed up and drove to a quiet spot to grab what sleep I could in the car.

"Sleeping" in the car is generous — it's really just uncomfortable dozing punctuated by waking up every hour, which does have one upside: every time you stir, you can check whether the sky's cleared. At 2am, one of those groggy checks turned up a sky absolutely glittering with stars, and that was that — cameras back out, chasing two more hours of Milky Way before it dipped below the horizon and the cloud rolled back in for good.

It was during that stretch that I caught one of the best meteors I've ever seen. Not the biggest, not the brightest — but in skies that dark, the green was vivid, and the air was clean enough that I could clearly make out the smoke trail it left behind. Meteors have a habit of streaking across the sky in every direction except the one your camera happens to be pointed at, and this was no exception — but I saw it, and that was enough.

I also managed to see Pleiades (Matariki) rising and share a frame with a bright green meteor too.

By 4am the cloud had won for good. I set both cameras running on timelapse, climbed back into the car, and grabbed what was left of the night before it was time to get up and get on with the day. Don't forget the quick stop to reward myself with the breakfast of champions after a night of chasing epicness!!