The Bay, the Cape and the Island: Easter in Northland

We took the four-day holiday proffered by the Easter weekend to head up to the Bay of Islands with James (see previous blogs) and our uni friend Faye, who hopped over from her enviable life in Sydney to join us.

Piha beach with Janelle

A shaky start thanks to Jetstar meant we arrived into Auckland on Friday morning instead of Thursday evening, and drove straight to Elevation Cafe to meet my old Suva school friend Janelle. The views over Auckland were vast, and the brunch delicious. We then drove together to Piha beach, which is out west of Auckland, where we strolled along in the shallow water reminiscing, and climbed Lion Rock to see the surfers dotted below. After seaside ice cream we walked inland to a tall set of waterfalls, down which Janelle's brother runs canyoning and abseiling tours. 


Sadly there was no time for a dip or an abseil - we hotfooted it back to Auckland airport to pick up Faye, and zoomed north. Our destination: Paihia in the famed Bay of Islands. Our bach was up the hill overlooking the town and with views out into the bay. The view at sunrise was golden (see artistic pic later on).

Bay of Islands with our loop walk and later kayaking routes in red (and the car ferry!)

Whangamumu loop track views

Saturday morning we pitched up at the ferry terminal ready for a day out at Urupukapuka Island. The lady informed us that every ferry today and tomorrow were booked out. We booked onto Monday's and regrouped. James had been recommended the walk along Cape Brett, the eastern spur of the Bay of Islands. We had a glossy A4 simplified map from the iSite and after a childishly exciting trip on the car ferry (Opua to Russell) struck out towards Whangamumu Harbour. 

We soon realised a loop track south of Cape Brett was realistic, and this was more than satisfying: spectacular views, grassy bays, a handful of other trampers, an old whaling station, a true kiwi path that had us wading thigh-deep along some coast, and a secluded white sand beach with breakers perfect for body surfing.

Thoroughly sweaty from all the hills we drove to Russell, but just too late for the Pompallier House tour (an early French mission with its own printing press and tannery for Bibles). Instead we enjoyed the calm sweep of the bay, picturesque wooden houses and a drink in the Duke of Marlborough. We also admired an enormous (137kg) Marlin fish caught that day and hanging up for everyone to ogle on the wharf.

Russell

That evening we hosted five medical students who knew James from Auckland. They swept in with food and did all the chopping and half the BBQing for a classic grab-it-if-you-want-it BBQ. Three of them were Belgian (Flemish and German bits) so Europe vs UK became a lively topic.

Sunrise on Paihia Beach (Photographer: James)

On Sunday we enjoyed Faye's poached eggs and avocado on toast, before driving north north north towards Cape Reinga at the tip of the North Island. Faye and I almost joined a musical Easter church service in Kaitaia community centre but the Bowie CDs and expert commentary from James sustained us to Te Paki, where we left the main road to meet Ninety Mile Beach.

Desert landscape, Te Paki dunes, Ninety Mile Beach

Off-piste sand boarding

Huge sand dunes! A shed with boogie boards for hire! Sausage sandwiches in our rucksack! It felt surreal sitting atop a desert with a sea view. After lunch we had turns on our board, competing for the furthest run down a 'virgin' dune (James won). We tried other slopes too: off-piste where no one had gone before was best. We pushed our hill legs to the limit on the walks back up. 

We reached Cape Reinga mid-afternoon, along with everyone else in Northland. This did not detract from the delight and awe of seeing the Tasman Sea clash with the Pacific Ocean coming the other way. The waves genuinely do rise up and crash into each other, creating bizarre white water out at sea.

Cape Reinga is a hugely important place for Maori; it is where spirits leave Aotearoa for the after-world, stepping down the roots of an ancient Pohutukawa tree perched on the side of a rocky promontory. It has never flowered.

After a compulsory side walk to Sandy Bay (part of the Te Paki coastal track and blissfully empty) we drove to Mangonui, at the South end of Doubtless Bay (named as such following the uninspiring sentence uttered by Captain Cook: "Doubtless, this is a bay"). A colleague of mine had recommended the popular fish and chip cafe on stilts over the water. We had delicious fresh fish of the day, calamari and lots of chips.










The next morning found us on a child-infested ferry to Urupukapuka Island, where we hired kayaks. Paddling round various bays, we stopped off for a couple of idyllic beach swims (including swiftly-named Bay of Faye) and Rog and I rode a wave between towering rocks just offshore. We then tucked into an extensive lunch in Orahei Bay, lying on beanbags in the sun at the grassy cafe. 

Upon return to dry land - until it was soaked by a brief shower of rain - we began our long drive back to Auckland. Two very brief stops at the Waitangi Treaty grounds and Kawakawa toilets (Hundertwasser design) were followed by a more lengthy - and muddy - exploration of the Waipu Caves. We navigated under impressive stalactites, through chambers opening up with high ceilings, and across shallow streams, watched over by posses of glow worms. They didn't seem to mind us augmenting their magical pinpricks of greenish light with our phone torches. 

Back at James' in Remuera, Auckland, we had takeaway pizza and stayed at an airport hotel for an early morning flight back to Wellington, work and lots of washing.

Congrats for reading this far: here is us being the Tasman Sea (Dora) and the Pacific Ocean (Rog and James)

Next week we'll tell you all about how we're filling up our free time here in Welly, before we venture up the Able Tasman with James (yes, the same one) next weekend! Until next time...

Tongariro Part II, crumble and Red Rocks

As promised, herewith my account of the Tongariro Crossing, plus a trip to Red Rocks.

James, Hannah, Rob (Oxford medics) and I set off at first light from Mangetepopo Hut, climbing to the foot of Mt Ngauruhoe as the sun crept up the other side. Turning to look behind us we could clearly see Mt Taranaki out to the West. After a pause in the sun gazing up at 'Mt Doom' we crunched across the still-frozen South Crater; apart from a lone photographer we were the only people there.

South Crater looking towards Ngauruhoe

A climb on the far side to the Tongiriro summit turn off (later the scene of 15min queues) and we could see right out across Lake Taupo and beyond. A leisurely pace took us up along the ridge to Mt Tongiriro summit, which we shared with two French men and concentrated on not falling off from marvelling at the 360 views. We tried to spot Roger, Greg and Sam on Mt Ngauruhoe too.

Mt Tongariro summit - on top of the world (Mt Ruapehu behind)

By the time we got back to the main path it had become Tottenham Court Rd at lunchtime (but not Piccadilly Circus). We sidled up to the rim of the Red Crater - very large, very red - and then a short steep climb to the highest point of the Crossing path, where suddenly you see the unearthly green Emerald Lakes ranged below. Several particularly good places to take a photo had queues, and I did worry about people sliding in the scree and off the edge. But good tramping manners reigned as we scree surfed down to firm ground at the lakes.

We had lunch by the Blue Lake, which is on the path out towards the Ketetahi carpark. I said goodbye to the medics in the early afternoon, as they had several more hours' tramping to go to Waihohonu hut (absolutely palatial in case you ever have the chance to stay there). I met Roger, Sam and Greg by the Emerald Lakes, biding time by being concerned for day hikers in running gear with no visible water.

Sitting by Blue Lake. We ate further away up the hillside as the Lake is important to local iwi and therefore eating and drinking is culturally insensitive

[The next morning] There was a stunning sunrise at Oturere Hut, with campers and tents silhouetted against it, as I walked to the loo. Getting up on Monday morning to drive to work from Trish and Andrew's made it three sunrises I'd seen in a row. Definitely a personal best.

Image: James Bradley-Watson, photographer

Monday this week was such a beautiful day we were inspired to drive out to Red Rocks south of Wellington city for a walk and seal spotting. We enjoyed the long shadows and golden light of the evening, marvelled at 4WD vehicles navigating 'Devil's Gate', spotted three seals and saw lots of red rocks.

Spot the seal

In other news, I made an excellent feijoa and peach crumble with Shand feijoas and White peaches. Unfortunately we ate it all before I could get a photo.

Here is the sunset at Red Rocks instead. You can see the South Island in the distance!

This week's Wellington life tit bit: my walk to work takes me under The Terrace via Woodward St pedestrian tunnel, or, if you shut your eyes, via the Kumutoto Stream, complete with burbling water, cicadas and bird noises. The effect almost takes you back to a time before the Terrace.

A time before the Terrace (Tongariro Crossing)

We're off to the Bay of Islands and Northland this week, so expect tales from Russell, Kerikeri Stone Store, Cape Reinga and Matapouri beach. Fingers crossed Metservice has the weather right!

Travels around the North Island: the visit of Greg and Sam [bumper edition]

The below blog covers the visit of Greg and Sam last week. Apologies about the length, but I've tried to cover a lot of ground/time. Feel free to just enjoy the pictures.

Greg and Sam arrived on Tuesday 8 March, and were greatly impressed by some excellent homemade signage that had found its way into Wellington airport.

After exploring Wellington on Wednesday – Te Papa and the Beehive the core of their itinerary – we (Sam, Greg and I, Roger) began our taster session of the North Island with a wine tasting tour of Martinborough.

Tasting the wine, repeatedly

The settlement was founded by John Martin, who, not content with just having a town named after him, proceeded to name all the streets after places he’d visited. We therefore spent the day cycling along Panama Street, Cambridge Road and New York Street. A tandem added some additional wobbliness to an already wobbly afternoon, during which we visited six wineries and tasted 36 different wines. Our palettes thoroughly worn out, we finished off the evening at a traditional Wellington Cambodian restaurant.

We spent Friday travelling up to the Tongariro National Park. A stop off at Trish and Andrews’ farm near Marton provided Sam and Greg with the opportunity to risk their necks quad-biking (and augmented our supplies with some famous chocolate fudge). Our wine-related late departure from Welly and various logistics stops meant that the brief hike to the first hut of our Northern Circuit route (Mangetepopo) was carried out in the fading dusk light, which added some jeopardy to what otherwise was a very relaxing day.

The Northern Circuit includes a good part of the Tongariro Crossing, and is one of the ‘Great Walks’ of New Zealand. Greg, Sam and I headed up Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films) summit then Tongariro, whilst Dora stuck with our friend James and some of his friends for the first part of the day (account to come).

Once we’d retrieved Dora from near a supernaturally blue lake we tramped around Ngauruhoe to our hut for the night. A brilliant sunset, some less brilliant food and very communal sleeping arrangements awaited us.

Sunday saw us complete the majority of the Northern Circuit loop, which is picturesque but couldn’t avoid being less impressive than the awe-inspiring views of the previous day. Highlights of Sunday included an old hut that served impractical early 20^th century skiing (where the men's room had a fire and the women's a mirror), some very blue lakes, and a nice waterfall at the end.

Whilst Dora scooted off to Wellington, Sam, Greg and I went  to do some white water rafting on the Rangitikei. We had been promised an isolated and Grade 5 (the hardest accessible) experience like no other… but the presence of a large group of backpackers and very low water levels put paid to both of these attributes. We instead braved the same course in inflatable kayaks, which was still great fun, even if at times it felt as through we were paddling through pebbles as much as water.

Greg (during run) with Taupo
in background

Heading up to Taupo, we arrived at our Air BnB, which had incredible views over the lake. A relaxed evening with curry and ‘The Bachelor’ (an awfully compulsive awful show with which New Zealand seems obsessed) closed the evening, as we looked forward to sky diving the next day…

… which was unfortunately cancelled due to bad weather! Determined to keep our chins up we zoomed over to the Oraki Karakei volcanic springs, before coming back to Taupo for a spot of miniature golf and an ‘escape room’. The latter of these was based in a shipping container in a car park, but we set aside any misgivings and agreed to be locked inside u

ntil we had solved an extensive set of clues and riddles. This we managed with aplomb, and are now proud holders of the award for the top International Escape Room team (to have completed the Taupo escape room)!

The next morning Lady Luck again decided not to bless us with good enough weather for skydiving, so we hit the mountain bike tracks for which Taupo is famous. Despite Greg initially falling in a ravine we had a brilliant morning, although my confidence got the better of me towards the end and resulted in a crash where I picked up some minor flesh wounds.

Saying goodbye to Taupo, we continued our journey up the North Island to visit the set of Hobbiton, which has come a long way since Sam visited in the late 2000s, when apparently it consisted entirely of some remnants of the set and disinterested sheep. The latest version – reincarnated for the filming of the Hobbit and now maintained as a tourist trap – is much more impressive, with real vegetables, a working hobbit pub (‘The Green Dragon’) and plenty of keen tour guides dispensing facts about the slightly unhinged demands Peter Jackson places on the production team (e.g. repainting all the leaves on a particular tree to be a more picturesque shade of green).

As Wednesday came to a close we drove up to the Coromandel, arriving at our beachside retreat just before the dodgy headlights on our hire car made us a genuine danger to other road users.

Digging for warmth

The next morning the Weather Gods were again not in our favour, as storm-like conditions and incessant rain made scuba-diving impossible. In search of warmth, we headed to Hot Springs Beach, where you can dig a couple of inches into the sand to find geothermal-heated water, and thence go on to engineer an outdoor swimming pool powered by the earth’s core. We then made the best of a very brief break in the weather to trek over to Cathedral Cove, where the sea has hollowed out a huge tunnel in an outcrop of rock.

The rest of Thursday was spent looking for activities that are possible in terrible weather, of which the Coromandel is in short supply. Our final evening was spent at the only pub in the small town we were staying, where we continued the ‘wet’ theme of the day into the evening, but with beer instead of rain.

View downwards from
 Sky Tower

Me wearing typical NZ rugby top,
on a typical NZ hill,
in front of a typical Auckland scene

On Friday we travelled to Auckland. The Sky Tower caught our eye first, which is unsurprising since it is the highest building in the Southern Hemisphere, something the information boards won’t let you forget. Having seen Auckland from above, we then decided to see it from far away, so caught a boat to Rangitoto Island. This is the most recently-active of Auckland’s numerous volcanoes, with the last eruption around 600 years ago. With only 1.75 hours to do a trek that is meant to take 2.5, we power-walked to the summit and then through some impressive lava caves. Once we’d returned to the mainland we headed up another hill – Mt Eden – to see the city from a different angle, before driving to the airport to drop off our decrepit hire car.

Next blog post will be an account of Dora's Tongariro crossing (more about the scenery) and then we’ll be covering our Easter Weekend trip up to Northland, which is – you guessed it – the northernmost bit of New Zealand’s north island.

Unscheduled and unedited

Dear loyal followers,

Dora here. Roger is in Hahei on the Coromandel with good friends Greg and Sam, after a week travelling up through the North Island. Tomorrow they will visit Auckland, conclude Wellington is better, and return here in the evening.

I'm afraid the Tongariro Northern Circuit story is embargoed until Roger is back and we can write it together. Otherwise you would miss his account of climbing Ngauruhoe. So I'm doing a bit of traditional blogging for you: sitting, writing, inserting photos of food, posting. This is a vast departure from the norm: two drafts, feedback, negotiation and a whole session just choosing the photos.

I've also drawn inspiration from my best mate Becky's marathon blog (http://www.twentysixandabitmiles.blogspot.co.nz/) which is exemplary in tone and makes me laugh every time. She's running the London marathon for Crohn's & Colitis UK (www.virginmoneygiving.com/rebeccasage). 

So. First up is a photo of some brunch. May I draw your attention to the egg, which is a free-range Craigend egg. Delicious.

I have been experimenting with Feijoa crumble but over-stewed the first lot of fruit. The feijoas hail all the way from Gisborne on the East coast, where my cousin Nic and his family Jo, Jasper and Freddy live, next to a feijoa tree. Luckily I have lots of feijoas:

Moving on from food, to the travel section of the blog. Some observations of Wellington:

- People say thank you to the driver on leaving the bus, even though the doors are in the middle. Having to tap off the bus provides a convenient moment in which to do this.

- Water is free. In Auckland they have to pay for water.

- There is a day when people decide it is now winter. That day was yesterday. Everyone owns a neat little autumnal Kathmandu puffa jacket.

- If you use Uber often (Uber is an app-based taxi service) you are likely to encounter the same driver twice.

And now the personal life story bit. I'm really looking forward to seeing Mum and Dad when they visit in June. The flat we have is very warm so they can use it as a thermal retreat from the Mordor-like conditions we understand prevail in winter.

Roger and I are also going to Vanuatu for the first week of June. I am excited to go back for the first time in 10 years! We are copying Charles and Lydia a bit: going up to Santo to dive the SS President Coolidge and then to Tanna to see Yasur volcano. I'm looking forward to going to Port Vila market in the middle of the week, too. I've been ringing up Air Vanuatu as much as possible, mainly to listen to the lovely gentle Vanuatuan voice.

I've got to get the flat ready to pass Roger's inspection now. I leave you with a taster of next time (and the blog would not be complete without a selfie):

By Sea, By Land

On Saturday we headed to the lagoon on the waterfront for the annual dragon boat festival. Having spent literally hours preparing for this day our ‘crew’ were ready to impress. However, with many teams coming over from Australia and Auckland we quickly found that youth and beauty do not make up for experience and the seriousness of teams who fly abroad to compete.

Another one bites the dust...

This year’s festival was even more entertaining than usual by the unplanned addition of a big wave machine in the form of Wellington Harbour. Wind-driven swells meant boats were veering into each others’ lanes, capsizing and flooding all over the place, to general fascination from the crowd and smugness from the teams still afloat and on course (us every time). It turns out that a very long, very thin vessel filled with muscular/fat Australians isn’t the seaworthiest place to be when things get choppy.

Green Machine in action

Despite narrowly avoiding any medals (only one second from second place) we had a brilliant time, improving race after race. On top of the sunny, if windy, weather, our crew were great fun to spend the day with; they continued on this vein into the evening, aided by substantial amounts of rehydrating beer.

Big bikes on our tiny car

The next day we reached another milestone in our time here – our first New Zealand Hangover! I’d decided it would be good to schedule in a 50km bike ride over a mountain range, but neglected to mention this to Dora as we headed off to ‘test our new bikes’.

Sun shines, locomotives rust, Dora sweats

The Rimutaka Cycle Trail is one of the great cycles of New Zealand, following the course of a disused railway line that punctures through the hills surrounding Wellington to reach the wineries of Martinborough. We peddled over bridges, and through tunnels of greenery and rock. Bursting out of the other side we freewheeled a couple of kilometres and then warmed down on the way to Featherson to get the train back.

No train any time soon

Unfortunately by this time Dora was suffering from mild dehydration, and I was unable to lift her spirits with a rousing song because my voicebox had been blown by shouting “POWER ON THREE, TWO, ONE” the previous day. Once I’d appropriated some water from a nearby kiwi (man, not bird) she was back on top form though… or at least back to being mildly hungover.

As I type we’re painting an airport welcome sign for Greg and Sam when they arrive tomorrow. Next week we’ll tell you all about wine tasting and the Tongariro crossing.

Roger (and Dora)