Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga

 

Wednesday 14^th February

Not only was it Valentine’s day, but the 31^st anniversary of our arrival in Chile!  It was our first sleep in of the trip.  We didn’t depart our new home till after 9.  Decadence!   After checking the forecast for the next few days we rejigged our itinerary, booked a cruise for the afternoon and were fortunate enough to be able to extend our stay in this delightful AirBnb.

In the nearby town of Kerikeri we were greeted with more fire drama as several fire trucks departed with all bells and whistles blaring.  We hoped it wasn’t heading to our place!   A little while later we could see a big plume of black smoke just out of town and later drove past the remains of a commercial building now in ruins.

On the other side of town we had a delightful visit to an historic site which included New Zealand’s oldest European built house, that of a missionary, a Maori fortress site  and the longest operating business in a 3 story stone storehouse.  

Stone storehouse and the oldest European buildin

Moari canoe

A café called Wendy for a coffee and she couldn’t resist their “anzac” biscuit…check it out…about the only thing it had in common with ours were the oats!  

Not our sort of anzac biscuit!

While enjoying this treat, we received a message to say there’d been a huge storm at home with cyclonic type winds.  Our friend Terri went and inspected, one neighbour’s tree down on our fence, huge quantities of fruit on the ground, bird nets blown off and no power.  The storm was very wide spread so we’re hoping the power will come back before too long.

Moving on to Paihia where we were to take the cruise.  It was tourist central, made especially so with 2 cruise ships in the harbour.  One enormous one and it’s smaller sibling.  Our cruise was wonderful.  The captain/tour leader was delightful and we learnt all sorts of bits of history, biology…  We had stops at 2 islands and zipped past lots more of the 144 islands in the bay.  The first stop was where Captain Cook had his first encounter with the Maori.  Here we did a walk to the top of the island for fantastic views and historic information boards.

Tui

  The second stop was for beach activities.  Wendy had her first go at a stand up paddle board.  Mastered it pretty well, but decided she didn’t need that particular toy.  The kayak being much more relaxing.  Snorkelling was also on offer but it proved disappointing with rather bad visibility, but lots of blue sparkling NZ snapper. 

 

 The grand finale event was tasting the roe of the local sea urchin.  At least it was more pleasant than the Chilean variety!!

Back “home” for a late dinner and a quiet night.

Thursday 15^th February

Having recently been to the tip of Cape York, we thought a trip to the tip of NZ would make a nice double, so off we headed to Cape Reinga. 

The latest news from home was that the power was still off.  Hmmm the fridge and freezer in the house were hooked up to a battery powered by solar, so they should be ok, but another freezer, full of fruit, desserts, some meat… was now more than 24hrs without power.   We stopped on our trip here and there to ensure mobile communication and were able to contact Maureen and Maurice, great friends who went and extracted our generator from the shed and connected it up to the freezer.  Just one problem, they couldn’t get the generator to start!  More messages  and  our neighbour John came and started it.  What wonderfully helpful friends.

Cape Reinga provided many differences from Cape York! – sealed road surface, buses, more people, toilets and a sealed path to the end!

Cape Reinga lighthouse in the distance

Looking south from Cape Reinga

The Tasman meets the Pacific

It took us about 3 hours on the way up and lots more on the way back as we did some side trips, the first of which was to the giant sand dunes on the west coast.  Wendy just had to climb to the top! 

That speck at the top isn't Wendy

She did make it though

Looking down from the top

Next was to satisfy our curiosity thanks to signs that said “Buried Forest” and “Gum Diggers”  A small privately owned patch of land was home to an information centre and excellent interpretive walks.  12,000 years ago there were huge kauri forests in the area but they were destroyed by a cataclysmic event.  The trees were all snapped off at ground level and gradually became buried and perfectly preserved.  There’s a bit of a fad for digging them up and turning them into beautiful objects.  While growing, the Kauris produce a lot of gum (sap) which bleeds out when a tree is injured.  Someone discovered the gum, basically amber, was abundant in amongst the ancient buried forest.  A literal gold rush was the result and gum became the major export from NZ for many years.  It was discovered that it was great for making varnish and linoleum, apart from looking splendid  in jewellery and other creations.   Gum boots get their name from the boots used by the men digging for gum.

A serious hole dug out for gum

Gum diggers equipment

Gum diggers house

Trunk of a 1,000yr old Kauri buried for 120,000 years

We also took a tourist route through hills affording some great views of the eastern coastline.  It was steep and windy and quite a challenge for our tiny little car!

East coast views