Just yesterday my friend emailed me this amazing link to a clip of the Norwegian Atlantic Road.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/4T4vc1QqiPM?feature=player_embedded
{The road is built on several small islands and reefs, and is crossed by eight bridges, several roads and overpasses. This road has a view of the open sea, which is rare on the roads along the Norwegian coast. You can see fjords and mountains near the road.
The spectacular road quickly became a tourist attraction, insofar precautions should be displayed while driving, because of the attendance of the road by the local population and visitors.
Imagine you are driving.}
As I was watching the clip, I started having flashbacks to a trip I made to Cape Reinga in New Zealand a few years back.
In the far northern part of the North Island, Cape Reinga is home to 90 Mile Beach.
As you may know, New Zealand is a bit of a mecca for adventure enthusiasts.
Something that is not really my domain but as I have mentioned in previous posts, adventure kind of has a way of sniffing me out, hunting me down, and enforcing itself on me. As was the case in this situation.
Thinking I had picked a relatively tame day trip to see some of the highlights of New Zealands “top end”, part of my day included a nice scenic, yet fun drive along 90 Mile Beach in a specially designed bus.
The day we went the weather was not great. Grey and drizzly and as we got onto the beach, it started to turn gnarly The sea was wild and crashing down onto the beach.
Our driver had indicated we had a certain time frame to make the point, or “bluff” that got us to a side road off the beach at the other end.
This is where the day turned to mud- literally.
Approaching the bluff our driver starts commenting that he doesn’t think we are going to make it. We are too late. The tide had come in somewhat, and these vehicles were not designed to drive through wet sand.
Around this time I started to sense some uneasiness in our driver.
I was sitting at the front of the bus and he began to drive round in circles, revving up the engine as if he was going to just go for it, but bailing at the last moment.
Why didn’t we just turn around I hear you ask ?
Exactly. Why didn’t we ?
Well.
The tide was coming in at a rapid rate and the beach was disappearing. We had around a 30 minute drive to make it to the closest exit off the beach. It was a tough call and both options were a risk.
Suddenly we have turned around and are rapidly heading back to where we came from.
Time was most certainly not on our side.
As I had taken position at the front of the bus I was able to see just how fast we were going.
{140km}
The race is on …….
Flying along the beach the waves were literally crashing on our bus as it fishtailed every now and again. We sat silently, holding on, watching the beach disappear in front of us.
To add to this excitement, the aircon’ packed it in, the bus started getting very hot, the windscreen fogged up and our personable happy-go-lucky veteran driver who had done this drive for many years was quite simply, freaking out.
Not overly comforting !
I think it was around this time I stopped breathing.
Thankfully, as you may have guessed from the simple fact that I am here writing this post, we survived.
As soon as we swerved off that beach and down the ” escape route” , the driver promptly stopped the bus, we all got off and gave a big collective sigh of relief ( followed swiftly by a cigarette for the driver) !
Ahhh adventure ! Don’t you just love it 
January 24, 2013 at 9:40 pm
Aha ha ha – brilliant Emma – and scary! You know you’re in trouble if the driver is freaking out! : O
January 24, 2013 at 9:53 pm
I KNOW !!!! It is no wonder I have a fear of all things moving is it