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Video: Boogie boarding down Northland’s sand dunes

I added another tick off my Great New Zealand Bucket List this weekend when I made the pilgrimage north to Cape Reinga, the very tip of New Zealand where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. And on the way back, our Great Sights bus (with hard case Barry as our driver) stopped on the sand – officially a highway in New Zealand with speed limits of 100kph, pulled out the boogie boards and told us how to dune bash.

There are a few important tips to remember when boogie boarding down a sand dune:

1: keep your mouth zipped as you hurtle down lest you swallow gobs of sand (fail on my part), 2: kneel at the end of the board before you start or you will take off unexpectedly, 3: hold the front, lie down on your tummy, lift your feet up and use them as brakes if you get scared and want to slow down. And before you hit the water at the bottom.

It takes a breathless five or six minutes to clamber the dune and a mere 18 seconds to come down.

Check out our day on the dunes in this 18-second video and add it to your Bucket List.

YouTube video

Here’s the rest of my Great New Zealand Bucket List >>>

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Hi, I'm Megan Singleton and I'm the word slinger of this travel blog as well as on radio in NZ every Sunday. Former Travel Editor at Yahoo NZ and current freelance writer for a few newspapers and mags from time to time, I set off on this travel writing journey 20 years ago and I've pretty much always got a suitcase half packed (or half un-packed!) I'd love you to join me on Facebook or Twitter and sign up for my newsletters if you want loads of travel tips, advice and deals!