Intermittent Fasting: My take on it after 3 months on IF

If you still aren't familiar with intermittent fasting (IF), you must have been living under a rock!

IF is simply a pattern of eating that cycles between periods of fasting and eating, hence the name intermittent fasting.
Although some overzealous IF-ers will strongly advise that you stay away from carbohydrates (keto-fasting) or at least, (greatly) limit the amount of carbohydrates that you eat per day, IF actually does not specify which food you should (and shouldn't) eat, but only WHEN you should eat them.
Hence, if you view it from that aspect, IF is not a diet, but more accurately described as a lifestyle, or just an eating habit.

There's quite a few methods of IF currently practiced by many, namely:

 - The 16:8 method: Also called the Leangains diet, you simply eat in an 8-hour feeding window and fast for 16 hours.

- The 20:4 method: Also called the Warrior diet, whereby you restrict your daily eating window to 4 hours and fast for the next 20 hours.

- The 23:1 method: Also called OMAD (One Meal A Day), whereby you literally just eat 1 meal everyday, typically over the course of 1 hour.

- The 5:2 Diet: It's a weekly based method, whereby you consume extremely low calories (500 - 600 calories) on two non-consecutive days of the week, but eat as you would usually for the other 5 days.

- Eat-Stop-Eat method: This involves a 24-hours fast, once or twice a week.

The main reason of practicing IF, is for health aspects such as autophagy (cellular repair) and improving insulin sensitivity. It also increases the levels of human growth hormone in our body, and brings about changes in the function of genes related to longevity and protection again diseases.

But all those health sciences aside, I'm just going to focus on one of the biggest (and most popular) "side-effect" of IF, and that is weight loss. With IF, you're forced to shorten the amount of eating time everyday and hence, most of us will unknowingly reduce our calorie intake, resulting in an overall weight loss. But of course, this only happens if you do not "compensate" by mindlessly overeating during your eating windows.

Since embarking on my IF journey, I've joined a few FB groups to learn more about this new eating lifestyle from others and I have to say that there's a group of Dr Fung's followers who seems to have a misunderstanding of his theories put across in his book titled: The Obesity Code and goes around giving misinformed advice to IF newbies, telling them calories do not matter, simply because Dr Fung has said that the traditional diet method of CI/CO (calories in - calories out) is a failure.

Well, I have to admit that I have not read the book, nor do I have any intention to, especially after seeing how those seemingly brainwashed readers behaving in a cultish, aggressive manner towards anybody who mention "counting calories" or "tracking what you eat".
I mean... I don't know, was it the book or was it food-deprivation (being hangry all the time) or what?

Anyway, I'm still going to say that CI/CO is a FACT. If you eat in a deficit, you lose. If you eat in a surplus, you gain. This CI/CO equation sets the basis for any form of diet plans you're seeing out there.
As to why the theory of how this CI/CO model is doomed to fail, it's simply because the conventional way of how this model is practiced is not sustainable. Dieters usually gets obsessed with simply counting calories, ignore the fact that a calorie is (in fact) NOT a calorie, and seems to think that our body works on a 24-hour clock and resets our calorie intake/expenditure every time the clock strikes 12 midnight. Following the CI/CO model, dieters also tend to put their bodies on a FIXED amount of caloric deficit every single day (eg. never exceeding 1200 calories a day), which leads to the onset of metabolic adaptation, whereby your body lowers its basic metabolic rate to fit the lower amount of calories you've been eating. As a result, to continue losing weight, you'll just need to further reduce your calorie intake, until you simply cannot keep up with the ridiculously low amount of calories and eventually falling off the wagon.

Now, while I'm still not all familiar with the science of IF (about the hormones and insulin sensitivity), I got myself started on IF simply because I believe that IF is the way to get around the issue of metabolic adaptation, as research studies has shown that dieters doing IF on a calorie restricted diet tends to lose more body fat than muscle mass as compared to those on just a calorie restricted diet. In other words, IF helps us to burn body fat while preserving our muscle mass.

And so, before I get into how I personally did the 3 months of IF, I would first like to share my results!

7 April 2019
Weight: 143 lbs
Fat %: 28.3 (yikes!)
Muscle %: 30.9

23 June 2019
Weight: 135.6 lbs
Fat %: 21.9
Muscle %: 34.2

And in spite of losing nearly 7 lbs, my estimated metabolism has only dropped 18 calories, which... really is negligible.

And so, how did I plan my IF schedule?

While 16:8 is the most common (and easily followed) method, I have to admit that an 8-hours eating window is still too short for me to fit both my work and gym schedule into it. Hence on weekdays, I'm actually doing 15:9, breaking fast during my lunch break at 130 pm and closing my eating window usually with my protein shake 1 hour after my dinner at 1030 pm.
On weekends, as I do not work (I do work half day on Saturday though) and do not go to the gym, I can easily stretch out my fasting hours to do up to 18:6 (not gungho enough to do 20:4).
And of course, I'm on an eat-clean diet for 6 days a week, and every Sunday is my cheatday!

And here's typically what I eat for my lunch on my eat-clean days.

 

My most commonly eaten carbs is red cargo/brown rice.

And sometimes I treat myself to some quinoa or multigrains (barley, millet, brown rice, and other wholegrains). 

My typical choices for dishes to go along with my self-packed complex carbs will be 1 vegetable, 1 animal protein, and 1 plant based protein from the economic mixed vegetable stall. On my more active days (when I go for two hours workout at the gym), I may throw in one more hard-boiled egg to my lunch for some extra protein. I'll also eat a pre-packed box of fruits (strawberries, blueberries, grapes) along with my lunch meal everyday. :) 

And on some rare occasion when I have dinner plans after work and can't pack lunch, I might even grab some McDonald's too. But it's only their grilled chicken salad with cup corn, guys. Nothing else. And if you've tried the salad, you should know that it's actually pretty tasty but it's such a miserable portion size, hence I prepared my own wholegrain toasts (that also happened to be gluten free but I usually do not avoid wheat) and fresh fruits. 

And while most people skip their breakfast altogether to shorten their eating window into 8 hours, I merely shifted my breakfast to mid-day (and gave up my mid-day protein bar). 

Most of the time, my "mid-day snack" will be a cup of sugarless coffee and two slices of wholemeal bread with 1/2 tbsp of low-fat powdered peanut butter (I'm using PB2) and 1/2 tbsp of sugar-free jam (I'm using Smuckers) or normal peanut butter/almond butter for more taste, as PB2 really lacks the peanut butter taste.

And of course, from time to time I get some "sinful" treats for my mid-day snack as well. This is my favourite "red bean pau", handmade by my lovely neighbour. She calls it Wo Wo Tou (the steamed bun is actually made with rice flour and corn meal instead of wheat flour) and the filling is just mashed up boiled red beans wrapped in a layer of pumpkin mochi. Sounds simple but it's sooooo good! 

And so after my gym sessions, I will get back home for dinner (and try to eat my meal within 1 hour after gym), which is very similar to what I have for lunch (but usually with fish as my animal protein), but all home-cooked (hence less oily, less saucy and less heavily seasoned) and without the starchy carbs. Instead I will have a bowl of soup (such as lotus root pork ribs, radish pork ribs, sweet corn potato pork ribs, korean spicy soft tofu soup etc) for added satiety factor. 

And of course, as I've mentioned earlier, I'll close my eating window with a protein shake at 1030 pm every night. Sometimes, I'll switch out the protein shake for some greek yogurt with frozen berries. On days when I realised that my caloric deficit is too high (I usually target 500 - 600 deficit), I'll give myself a treat of either a serving of Enlightened Ice Cream (low calories, less sugar, more protein), a serving of Khong Guan Marie Biscuits, or a serving of baked almond nuts. 

Predictable, boring diet plan? NO WAY!

Have you forgotten about my Sunday cheatday? Every Sunday, will be the day whereby I forget about the existence of myfitnesspal app on my phone, and eat literally whatever I fancy without caring about my macros or calories. 

The fact that I'm doing 18:6 method on my weekends helps a lot with preventing me from overeating during my cheatday as well. 

I mean, how much can you eat in just 6 hours, right? 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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NZL Travelogue: Cape Reinga, Te Paki Giant Sand Dunes and Waipoua Kauri Forest

And so, day 5 of our New Zealand road trip started off really early, before daybreak, at 5 plus in the morning as we're out to catch the sunrise at Cape Reinga Lighthouse, which opens at 6am. The drive from Tapotupotu campsite up to the lighthouse was pretty short, around 10 to 15 minutes, but extremely winding and dark, for the sun wasn't up yet and there's no man-made sources of lights at all, so do take extra care while driving if you're doing the same as us.

The car park is pretty spacious (and empty, duh it was only 6 plus in the morning) when we got there, with just another vehicle that pulled up shortly before us and another CV/motorhome parked right in the middle, which I assumed that they've stayed overnight at the carpark. The toilets here were spacious and clean, but seemingly locked up (with shutters) at specific timing and do not have electrical lights installed. If I'm not wrong, this area is not listed as a free campground, so you may end up getting evicted if the DOC guy drops by (will they?) and since the public toilets comes without light source and gets locked up after a certain time, do not attempt any (possible) illegal stays if you do not have a self-contained CV.

The actual lighthouse was a 15 minutes BRISK walk away from the entrance, so do buffer in some more time for leisure walking if you're planning to catch the sunrise or sunset. If you're viewing the sunrise, you can consider walking up the hill that's beside (or rather, before) the lighthouse, as the sun rises from the other side of the lighthouse, up from behind the cliffy area of the sea. Hence, I believe the sunset here will be much more stunning as the sun will set at the other side, which will be along the sea horizon directly behind the lighthouse.

And here's a mandatory shot with the lighthouse. HAH!

We came out of the premise/park shortly after the sun has risen, around 7 plus am, as there really isn't much left to do and the crowd is slowly pouring in, rendering photo-taking without any photo-bombers impossible. Seeing that we still have a short while to spare since our next destination is only a 20 minutes drive away and won't be "open" until 930 am, we... went back to sleep for another hour or so before getting up again to make a simple breakfast of grilled cheese sandwiches, ham & scrambled eggs and making use of the public toilet to wash up (yayy, saving our own limited water resource!) the dishes.
And after tidying up the CV (switching from night setup to day setup), we set off in the vague direction of our next destination with a unresponsive GPS (there were no signals here around Cape Reinga!) and hoping we'll just get there....

And we did. Whew!

And this is the Te Paki Giant Sand Dunes. Sandsurfing, here we come!

Various travel blogs has mentioned that there's a number of sandboard rental kiosks (opening at 930am to 1030am), and the rental fees gets cheaper and cheaper as you go further in. However, when we're there at around 10am, there's only ONE sandboard rental booth in sight, right at the "entrance" to the sand dunes and prices were $10 for a small board (more for kiddos) and $15 for a large board. The guy manning the kiosk will ask for some sort of ID from us, probably to prevent customers from running away with his boards. But since we parked our CV a distance away and we obviously kept all our valuables well locked up in the CV, we offered to hand him the keys to our CV, which he gladly accepted. (Found someone to take care of our keys, yay!)

To get to the sand dunes, you'll need to wad across a small stream of ankle deep water, so do prepare proper footwear (flip flops!) when visiting.

I love how endless the entire place feels (and looks). Like, other than a few other tourists in the far distance, there's just you, sand and sky. And while I did seem very happy and totally "ready for the gram", I have to admit that moving around on the sand dunes, especially climbing up slopes (however TINY they are, as long as it's not horizontally flat), is a total b*tch! As the sand were very soft and just slides off at the smallest disturbance, climbing up a slope is effectively just like walking on a ridiculously elevated treadmill.
I step and I step and I step and I step and I stopped and looked, and I've gotten nowhere. NOWHERE!

But since we've already rented a sandboard, let's take some posey pictures with it like I'm a total professional sand-surfer.

But the BF did make good use of the sandboard for just one time of a serious sand surfing though, and he nearly died climbing all the way up.

After we're both half dead from literally just walking around on the sand dunes, we took a quick shower in our CV (there's no public toilets nor showers nearby, so thank goodness for our self-contained Jucy Chaser!) and headed off to our pit stop destination for lunch, Kaitaia town, which is a 2 hours' non-stop drive away.

I was deciding between The Gecko Cafe or The Wild Belle, both of which has pretty good reviews online, and decided on Gecko in the end for the reviews of their coffee was all pretty good.

Unfortunately, luck wasn't really on our side, for their kitchen was closed for the day and we were left with just a small selection of cabinet food for our lunch. 

And so we got a potato-mushroom (??) salad and a quiche to share. And their coffee didn't disappoint though! 

And the quiche was pretty decent too!

And so, after a quick lunch, it was another 3 hours drive (143 km) down to Waipoua Kauri Forest. 

 But we did have a pit stop in the middle (totally had no idea where were we) for the BF take a short rest.

And after a grueling 3 hours' drive, we managed to arrive at around 5pm. The entrance to the walking trail/park is right at the roadside, so you won't be able to miss it (even though the GPS actually pointed us further in when we set the location to "Waipoua Kauri Forest").

This forest is the home of Tane Mahuta, the country's largest kauri tree, which is approximately 2,000 years old and still growing. Nearly 18 metres to the first branch and 4.4 metres in diameter, Tane Mahuta is rightly called 'The Lord of the Forest'. Another significant tree in Waipoua Forest is Te Matua Ngahere – 'Father of the Forest' – which is estimated to be between 2,500 and 3,000 years old. There are 4 walking trails you can take, namely the Tane Mahuta Walk, Te Matua Ngahere Walk, Four Sisters Walk and Yakas Walk.

As we're really pressed for time that day, we just took the 5 minutes Tane Mahuta walk to see the Tane Mahuta tree.

If you're taking the Te Matua Ngahere walk, it will be a 20 minutes walking trail to see the 'Father of the Forest', which has a trunk over five metres in diameter, possessing the widest girth of any surviving kauri tree. Close by are the Four Sisters, a graceful collection of four tall trees in close proximity. From the same access road you can follow a half-hour walking track (Yakas Walk) to the Yakas Tree, the eighth largest kauri in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, as of June 2019, all of the walks are currently closed for either maintenance or due to discovery of pathogen causing kauri dieback.

Do check out their website for their current status if you're planning to make a visit!

And after bidding our goodbyes to the short encounter with the majestic kauri tree, it was another grueling 4+ (nearly 5?) hours' drive for the BF to get us back to Auckland City for the night.

We were also running low on petrol (yikes!) and if you've been to NZ, you'll know that most petrol station DO NOT open till late. Thank goodness I've CamperMate app downloaded on my phone and with better signals here and there along the way (VERY unstable signals), we managed to find one that closes at 6pm instead of the usual 5pm and made it just in time as they were closing (we reached at around 5:55pm).

And this petrol station definitely has the best scenic view, ever. 

And it's also at this petrol station when I found Barista Bros Coffee Milk. YUMS!

And of course, a road trip in NZ means randomly stopping by the roadside to take however many pictures you want.

By the time we reach Auckland City, it was already nearing 10pm. Was still hoping to be able to meet up with Ron and his wife again for a quick dinner, but everywhere is closed by then. :(

Anyway, our "campground" for the night is Maverick's Yard, a private yard that you can book on CamperMate App. It's just like airbnb, but for only CVs. Charging merely $20 NZD per vehicle per night, the house is a little rundown but still acceptable for the budget pricing. Bathroom is really big but floors were quite wet (probably due to others who has showered before us) and there's no accessories for you to hang your clothes/towels, and the windows won't shut properly. The toilet is dry and clean, but without any toilet paper inside so you got to bring your own. There's extra charges for usage of kitchen, which is in a very bad shape so we're better off cooking in our own CV.
We're also not able to refill freshwater nor dump waste water here, and there's no hookups to CV power, but we're able to use their household power to charge our devices, though not exactly very convenient because you have to leave them charging in the house.

And here's a shot of our humble CV dinner for the night. Scrambled eggs with green peppers and tomatoes, mushroom soup, toasts and hotdogs! 

Day 6 is up HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Lemon Blueberry Loaf Cake

Seeing that the best before date on my lemon curd is nearing, I decided to do another bake with it in order to finish the remaining few tablespoons of it (once and for all). But seeing how much my family end up loving this extremely light and yummy loaf cake, I might just need to buy more lemon curd instead. HAHA! >.<||

This is going to be a super easy, one bowl recipe that takes less than 10 minutes to whip up and another 20 to 25 minutes to bake. So let's get over with the ingredients so we can get started!

For 1 (8 x 4 inch) loaf (10 servings), we'll need:

140g all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

80g castor sugar
(I replaced 60g of it with baking stevia)

60g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature

50g greek yogurt
(I used low-fat)

2 eggs

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
(may add another tbsp if you'll prefer more lemon flavour)

2 tbsp lemon curd 

(for swirling, may use more)

80g fresh blueberries 

(you may use dried blueberries too)

First up, add your soften butter and sugar into a clean large bowl and beat it with a whisk until it turns pale and fluffy. Then, beat in the greek yogurt before beating in the eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Add in the lemon juice and give it another whisk until combined, before adding in all your dry ingredients (except for the blueberries) and folding until you're left with just a few pockets of flour before adding in the blueberries and giving everything a few more folding until just combined.
The batter is going to be pretty thick so the blueberries shouldn't be sinking too much, but if you're worried (and using dried blueberries/fruits), you may stir in a tablespoon or so of flour (from the 140g) into the dried fruit before folding them into your batter.

Once your batter is combined, spread half of the batter into your prepared loaf tin (sprayed down with cooking spray and lined with baking paper) before dropping dollops of the lemon curd all around the batter. Then, pour in the remaining half of the batter and smooth out the surface before sticking a chopstick into the middle and swirling it around to mix in the lemon curd. My 2 tbsps of lemon curd didn't show up much in the cake, so I'll suggest that you use more if you're a fan of a more citrus-lemony flavour.

Lastly, give your loaf tin a few taps on the counter to remove any air bubbles in your batter and send it into your oven that's pre-heated to 175 degree Celsius to bake for around 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Mine baked for 22 minutes.

With the addition of greek yogurt, the cake turn out extremely tender, fluffy and moist. Together with fresh lemon juice and blueberries, gave the cake a citrus touch and made the taste lighter and refreshing. 

But perhaps I could have used a smaller loaf tin to get a taller (and skinnier) looking cake. Heh!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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NZL Travelogue: Whangarei & Bay of Islands

With a cruise ride set to leave at 130pm that's a good 2 hours' drive away, we started our day quite early and left the holiday park right after topping up our fresh water & dumping our grey water at around 730am and set off for our first destination of the day, the Whangarei Falls. 

Situated to the North of Whangarei city, the spectacular Whangarei Falls is a 26m high waterfall surrounded by a park with native New Zealand bush and walkways. The GPS's route was a little confusing and we actually missed the turn to the car park. Just remember to follow the brown road signs to the Whangarei Falls – off Ngunguru Road at the NE end of Whangarei. There is plenty of parking, a picnic area and free entry. We can view the waterfall from a choice of 3 platforms above the falls or by walking down a well-maintained gravel track to the bottom. From the Whangarei Falls, we can also embark on longer walks to AH Reed Memorial Kauri Walkway (1 hour return), Mair Park and Mt Parihaka (2 hrs return) or the Town Basin (4 hrs return).

The viewing platform was just a 5 minutes walk from the car park (with public toilet nearby), which seems to be a good place for a free overnight's stay in our Jucy Chaser if we didn't need to top up fresh water/dump grey water. We chose to stay at the top of the falls and didn't venture down the walkway to view it from the bottom (although now on hindsight I felt we should have). So after hanging around for just 30 minutes, we headed back to our CV and set the GPS to Kiwi North, only to find out we needed barely 20 minutes to reach, which means we're going to arrive way before their opening hours at 10am. HAH!

So with a slight switch in my itinerary, we headed to Mokaba Cafe located at the Quayside for breakfast instead.

Stunning location, delicious food & coffee, gorgeous cakes & pastries including gluten free, friendly service, licenced, free wifi, plenty of parking. Delightful all day cafe overlooking the bustling Whangarei Town Basin where boats from all over the world are moored. Fabulous food (including gluten free options) and delicious Chiasso coffee are served all day by friendly, welcoming staff. After an exciting Mokaba experience there is a wide range of excellent boutique shops, artisans and craftsmen, museums, parks and a boardwalk along the side of the Hatea River.

And here's our scrumptious breakfast for the day! Prices are pretty decent, similar to an average cafe pricing in Singapore and the food portions are pretty manageable as well. 

I was a little torn between french toast or pancakes and in the end decided on the latter, while the BF settled on some boring toast with scrambled eggs. HAHA!

And here's my "birthday cake" only after demanding one from the BF. If you still didn't know, I planned the NZ road trip as my birthday trip. Yeah, self-planned and paid birthday trip, and still need to demand for a birthday cake. SIGH...

Anyway, after a hearty breakfast with an awesome riverside view, we hopped back onto our Jucy Chaser and headed back to Kiwi North!

Visit the nocturnal Kiwi House & see the resident kiwi foraging for food as they would in the wild. Learn about Kiwi conservation, spot our native Gecko and Tuatara. 

The Whangarei Museum is home to nationally significant Taonga (Maori treasure), early settler displays and changing exhibitions.

The Clarke Homestead, built in 1886 & lived in by the Clarke family until the 1980’s, is a museum in itself, displaying the family’s treasures through the generations. Other heritage buildings on site include the first Women’s Jail, Jane Mander’s Study, Oruaiti Chapel (made from a single Kauri log & believed to be New Zealand’s smallest church) & Riponui Pah School House.

So at just NZD $20 per adult entry, you get to enjoy THREE different attractions and I'm going to call this a pretty decent deal. While we're there, they were also having a special Anne Frank's exhibition up at the museum, which was also included in their $20 entrance ticket.

As the kiwi feeding time was at 11am, we first headed up to level 2 and took a look at the museum, which didn't have much interesting things unless you're a big fan of the Maori culture and history.

Unless you managed to bump into their feeding time, if not the kiwi enclosure may end up being a disappointment because it's so hard to catch sight of the kiwi birds. As they're nocturnal, to better mimic their natural habitat, the enclosure area was kept dim and filled with bushes and small trees for them to hide in. So do double check on their feeding times and make sure to plan your visit wisely.

The little gecko was pretty active while we're there, seemingly planning its great escape. 

And because the kiwi bird enclosure was way too dim to take any decent photographs, here's a shot of the kiwi bird model. HAHA!

As for the Heritage Park, I quite enjoyed walking through the Victorian heritage buildings and taking random shots here and there.

And after bidding the kiwi birds goodbye, we hopped back onto our Jucy Chaser for an almost 2 hours' drive down to Paihia for our Hole in the Rock Dolphin Cruise with Fullers GreatSights (NZD $192.60 for 2 adults with 10% discount for online booking). They do have a combination of other cruises and with some combo deals (add-ons for lunch on board etc) and alternative set-off location from Russell, so do check out their website for more details.

But before that, we actually stop by randomly by the beach along the way and had the takeouts we got from Mokaba Cafe for lunch! 

The cruise ride was actually pretty fun, but super COLD as the wind was just insane! There's time I really felt my glasses are going to be blown off my face and into the sea.
But here's a shot of the "hole in the rock".

We're pretty lucky to be able to pass through the hole in the rock, as the morning session cruise wasn't able to do so due to the weather/tide.
And here's a video of it! :)

And guess what, we saw a pod of dolphins too! LUCKY!

Some others on board also managed to catch a glimpse of a whale and a seal, but I wasn't quick enough.

And after the freezing experience, it was about 5pm and I was craving some fish & chips and a quick google search pointed us in the direction of Mangonui Fish Shop, which was about an hour's drive away (according to GoogleMap, which we've learnt is always too optimistic) and closes by 7pm

Their menu is pretty decent with not just fish & chips, but also burgers and other hot snacks available. But it's all in an ala-carte style where per slice of fish (of approximately 100g) ranges from NZD $5.60 to $11.70, depending on the type of fish and per scoop of chips at $4 (approximately 350g uncooked), which means it does get pretty pricey if you're an average to big eater.
But for the overall food quality, and ambience of the place ("glasshouse" setting that overlooks the sea and with tons of seagulls flying around, albeit with a handful of rowdy kids too), I'll still deem this a well-paid meal!

And I have to say, a single 100g fish fillet on its own can barely fill your tummy up. 

But they are yummy, and comes with a great view too. So I shan't complain much about the price/small portion. 

The initial plan was to take another hour's drive up to Pukenui Holiday Park (NZD $16 per pax), which is another 1 hour's drive away from Cape Reinga Lighthouse, as it was already getting pretty dark by the time we're done with dinner at around 7 plus, almost 8pm. But the BF was pretty confident of managing a 2 hours + drive (133km away) further up to Tapotupotu Campsite (NZD $13 per pax) instead, which is just 15 minutes drive away from the lighthouse. And so, we reached the paid campsite pretty late, past 10pm, and it was pitch black with no source of light at all (except for very faint source of illumination from some of the CVs), and was pretty crowded with many other CVs. Although it's not a free campground, there was nobody manning the campsite to receive payment. Instead, there's a box in the middle of the site, near the signboard and you are supposed to fill in the registration form and drop your money into the box upon entry. Then, tear off a piece of the form and display on your CV for random spot-checks from the DOC staff (some reviews state they will drop by once every 3 days).

It was stated on CamperMate app that the campground has fresh water tap and cold showers, but we didn't see any and it was way too dark to find them either. There's drop toilets (with no lights) at a corner of the site though, that's pretty clean, in terms of smell, as I can hardly see anything inside with just a small torchlight.
At $13 per pax, I felt that this campsite is not worthy the money at all. Perhaps the view here is amazeballs, just that we arrived way too late (after sun's down) and left way too early (before sun's up) to see anything. But still, $13 per pax for just a spot to park your CV with the chance to use drop toilets with NO lights is still a rip-off, so unless you're like us and want to save on sleep and chase the sunrise at Cape Reinga Lighthouse, you're better off paying an additional $3 per pax and make use of the facilities at Pukenui Holiday Park. A small brownie point for this campground is that due to the extreme darkness, you can see ALOT of stars on a cloudless night. The sky was like a starry poster when we first arrived and walked to the toilet. But after we've all washed up and wanna chill, the clouds came out and covered all the stars... MEH.

Day 5 is up HERE

Till then,
Mia Foo

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