It's Hot Up North - Kaitaia, New Zealand
Kaitaia, New Zealand
We thought we’d take an overview of Auckland from the top of the adjacent Mount Eden. Mount Eden, highest volcanic plug in Auckland, was closed for car park renewals. In the middle of the holidays. Good timing. So that was Auckland. Quick re-route check and pick up highway 1 north, crossing the Auckland Harbour Bridge where there would be a good view if you could only stop and look at it!
The day started and ended fine but we had gathering gloom and some rain showers on the way. Our mission? To travel to an isolated farm where Eileen and Tony, friends of H (and shortly M) rear beef cattle and dairy cows. The road would vary from four-lane motorway (at the Auckland end) to 5km of gravel top, but with the weather unseasonably wet we decided to push through and avoid most of the signposted diversions.
Well, that determination lasted as far as the Dome lookout, a viewpoint over a forested area. But with the car park half an hour’s walk (up steps) we limited ourselves to a coffee. While not much is happening, an aside – if you hire a car that specifies expensive 95 petrol, use 91 (the cheapest) instead. We religiously 'fed’ our south island car 95, only to be told this info by the north island Europcar rep. Kinda makes you wonder why we bother with the four cents a litre off coupons the supermarkets give us!
Another thing that’s been bugging me (M) – we came past a croquet club in Auckland today, and no-one was playing. Every bowls club bar one we’ve seen in Aus and NZ (and we’ve seen a few) has just been sitting there in the sun, perfectly manicured, with not a soul playing. Am I missing something here?
Anyway, hope that’s distracted from the lack of action. We broke again for lunch at a café that seemed to double as a police station – two officers were at the front window enjoying their coffee, so we were fairly sure no-one would break into our fully-laden car. After finding a garden centre to buy our hostess a plant, it was time for the final turning onto the gravel road.
We catch the couple and grandson Josh in between the two busiest periods of the day – they have 180 cows to milk at dawn and at dusk. It’s a tough, relentless life, but Tony – who later proudly reveals he’s in his 78th year - clearly thrives on it. With Test cricket and the Australian open tennis on the television there’s still the occasional gap to catch up. Satellite telly has been a boon to this family out in ‘the sticks’ – Tony recalls having to scale the local relayer mast to adjust it for better reception, something that apparently risked life and limb.
Eileen takes us into the local town of Kaitaia, half an hour distant, next morning, where we get a tour of the recently built library/museum. It pays tribute to the five Maori tribes of the district and the Dalmatians who came over from Eastern Europe to farm the district; some are still Eileen and Tony’s neighbours, and signs in the building are in English, Maori and Dalmatian! This is a big Maori area; the Waitangi Treaty, New Zealand’s founding document, was signed near here in 1840, and there seems to have been debated ever since. Eileen pops in to the local hospital where they have been given a rather nice island fan which we inspect and photograph, but no-one can remember which island it’s from.
A place of interest we visit is the Kauri Kingdom, devoted to the agathist tree. Centrepiece was a huge staircase, made out of a tree trunk, (ie carved INSIDE the bark spirally) that led to the first floor. Fossilised Kauri gum (sap) was also much prized and was for a long time a key ingredient of varnish; there were objects carved out of hardened kauri gum that looked rather like amber.
Friday saw us out on our own. After a dental checkup for H, we buy a new suitcase to replace one of our seven pieces of luggage that has failed to last (don’t buy cheap stuff from Sports Direct, folks), and then head for the Mangonui chip shop. This is famous, apparently, and was first recommended by our mate Dave Johnson from Whitehill, back home. It’s a glorified eat-in chippy with great fresh fish which has a reputation for being well cooked. The snapper and mussels were delicious but the chips were no better than anywhere else. Still, a nice place to eat with a cool draught as it’s perched over the harbour. Did we mention it’s hot again? More humid than usual and 26-27 degrees, which doesn’t sound too bad until you factor in the strength of the sun and the lack of breeze away from the coast. After eating, we headed off to explore the beaches of Doubtless Bay; H resolved not to come home until ‘total body immersion’ had been achieved. (Doubtless Bay is another of Captain Cook’s unconscious naming; as in Doubtful Sound he noted on his chart as they passed "Doubtless a bay").
Unfortunately the tide was out and there was quite a surf up. We inspected Cooper’s Bay and Cable Beach, so-named because it was from here that the intercontinental telegraph line went under the sea from. It could equally be named Pink Shell Beach and it does look attractive, but the sun is burning hot so we decide to go up the Karikari peninsula which borders the west side of Doubtless Bay. There are a selection of wildish beaches here, some of them along gravel roads, and all with a sprinkling of holiday (or maybe permanent) homes along them, and a few souls leaping in the surf. None of them really takes our fancy for a swim so we decide to go back to Cable Beach and hope the tide is in. It is coming in, surf still up, so swimming gets reduced to waves dodging, but the water is pleasantly warm if full of sand. It gets a small crowd as the sun cools and the tide rises.
We have packed our new suitcase which we hope will be under less strain than the old one and hopefully not much bigger. We are hoping to reduce our luggage by one hold bag for our inter-island flights in Hawaii…
Yesterday the Pacific Ocean, today the Tasman Sea! Or, more accurately, the meeting of the waves at the end of Cape Reinga, the northernmost lighthouse in New Zealand, just a few kilometres from the actual most northerly point. You can drive here yourself, but what you can’t do in a rental car is then drive back along “ninety-mile beach”, an experience we really wanted to try - so we booked a tour with Dune Riders to do the whole Far North peninsula. Eileen gamely gave the morning milking a miss to accompany us; her and Tony’s wedding reception a decade ago was chartering a bus to do the trip with their guests.
We were at the depot bright and early to get good seats on the bus, so met the driver Danny in advance and, after a bit of milling around and picking up passengers, finally set off from the Kauri Centre previously visited. Danny is part Maori but has a Dalmation surname, and we discover that they pronounce the “r” in Kauri and Maori almost as a D, a very hard R. (I heard them as ‘cody’ and ‘muddy’ – M.)
First stop is Gumdiggers Park, where they recently unearthed a buried Kauri trunk which has since proved to be between 100K and 150K years old. We admire its venerable wood from a balustrade before winding through native bush riddled with several-metre-deep holes where the gumdiggers had worked at finding the precious gum; the amber-like resin was sent to the UK for making varnish and later they mined the lesser-quality chalky gum for making linoleum! The funny thing is, given the huge prices commanded by reclaimed Kauri wood today, the gumdiggers were only interested in the gum and even burned the wood as it got in the way. The 100K year-old trunk lying in the earth is worth about $500K. Farmers round here clear UNDER their fields before filling them in and farming on top. Definitely a case of “where there’s muck there’s brass”.
We then make a short unscheduled stop at a beautiful harbour called Houhora (one of the few private camping grounds is here; most are owned by the NZ government) before moving on to a very early lunch at Waitiki Landing. Adequate if basic, as it’s included in the $55 cost of the trip it makes this one of the best-value activities we have done in New Zealand. (Maybe the fact there are three operators keeps the price competitive.) Then straight up to the end of the peninsula with beautiful views of sand dunes and turquoise seas on either side as we navigate the ridge. From the car park it’s a 20-minute walk down to the lighthouse (and a hot 25-minute walk back up!) but really the views are the star of the show, in particular the whirlpools caused by the meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Finally we switch back and take an entrance to 90 Mile Beach, where we have to drive along a sandy-bottomed stream. Huge golden sand dunes come into sight, along with a car park by the first dunes; people are straggling up the sandy side to boogieboard back down. Being a bus tour we have a special sand-boarding area but none of us three fancy whizzing down a sand dune face first to end up in the stream (we did wonder why most of the others on the tour were scantily dressed….). I might have had a go if you could have done it in a sledging manner, but didn’t fancy a face full of sand. It’s fun to watch and the dunes are amazing as little clouds glide by and the light on them changes all the time. It’s another typical New Zealand thing – we have these lovely sand dunes, but instead of just admiring them we will slide down them! We were impressed with another retired UK couple on the bus who were more game than we were.
Lastly, the beach drive. This has to be done when the tide is out so the sand is compacted. It’s a huge wide, flat beach and indeed was the only “road” up the peninsula before they built the actual road. Only special tour buses and 4WD are allowed on it and if you go at the wrong time you can get bogged down in quicksand. The turquoise surf is rolling out and we get a chance to paddle and dig for Tuitui, (‘tooee-tooee’), little bivalves which the Maori eat like oysters. There is a photo opportunity with an island with a hole through it. It is all very atmospheric.
Then we drive down it for 55km, and though it’s not quite the advertised 90 miles it’s quite mesmerising (wake up M!) and an unforgettable experience. It’s quite quiet, and all we pass are few UTEs with people fishing from them and a few campers. Apparently they have a sponsored mega fishing competition here once a year, but the latest craze at other times is a battery-powered ‘torpedo’ to which you can attach a line with up to 25 hooks. Fire it out, leave it, reel it in – hardly seems like sport!
On our way back Eileen takes us to the milking shed, currently between morning and evening use, to see how it’s set up. Most surprising of all (though we were warned of it) is a huge mural on the outside wall by a Maori artist who apparently did it all freestyle without a sketched design. It’s quite amazing!
On the bus we had been regaled with all sorts of local information, including translation of Maori place names. Exotic-sounding to us, they mostly translate rather mundanely: Kaitaia itself as “Big Food” (ie seafood was plentiful), and others as Big Hill, Little Hill and so on. Ah well.
Laundry and sorting stuff out day on Sunday, including booking our sleeper tickets on the Vancouver-Toronto “Canadian” train as it’s their annual spring special offer week so we get 30% off. The sleeper will be much like the Indian Pacific with 2 bunks but only a private washroom (communal shower) and meals but not drinks included. However tempting the next step up was (double bed and free drinks) the price was 3 times standard sleeper! It’s 4 nights on the train so we hope a bit smoother than in Oz as well.
Tony loaded a bale of hay into the back of his Ute (we’d call it a pickup really) and we all four loaded in for a steep trip up the hill to the “Plateau” where they grow hay for the winter. The view from the top is a full 360 degrees and takes in all his land and the sea to the north; we can see where we went in Doubtless Bay and up to Cape Reinga. He tells us that when he moved here 60 years ago, although the farm was already in existence, most of the land was native bush and all had to be cleared, tracks built and fences erected. On the land they have a couple of government-sponsored native bush reserves which are fenced off and where they try to trap the non-native aggressors such as possums and stoats. So native birds including kiwis live in these little woodlands. Eileen and H then had a look at some fans.
Did we mention the heat? It’s still hot today, beautiful blue skies but there’s a welcome breeze blowing. Auckland is apparently sweltering in 30 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded there was 32.4. The big surf we have been encountering recently is apparently the result of the tail end of Cyclone Victor which crossed north of here (missing Fiji and nothing currently forecast we are pleased to hear), combined with the heat has caused more fatalities; rescuers had to pull 3 people out of trouble in the water at Hot Water Beach (see previous blog); one dead and 2 seriously ill. Don’t underestimate the waters of the Pacific, folks! We hear it has been -7 in Oxfordshire.
Our last full day in the Northlands will be spent at Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where the historic declaration was signed in 1840. It’s been mentioned before, but basically the Maoris signed a document whose precise meaning has been debated ever since, partly because certain words didn’t exist in the Maori language and partly because the Brits knew that the Maoris wouldn’t agree to some things. The main debate is between “Governance” – ie helping to keep law and order and unite the tribes – (which is what the Maori version said) and “Sovereignty” which means giving everything to the Queen of England – which is what the British version said.
The entry price discriminated between tourists and Kiwis, which rather shocked me, while the guided tour was hard going as the guide, who had a strong NZ accent, gabbled 19 to the dozen. You get to see some waka (war canoes) and the governor’s house and a Maori meeting place but you need the tour otherwise it doesn’t make much sense. The Maoris sold their land to the settlers in order to buy muskets so they could fight other Maori tribes. Eventually they realised they were giving away all their heritage and were encouraged by missionaries to work together. There was a lot of conversion to Christianity as the missionaries were helpful to the Maori cause. They even designed a United Tribes of New Zealand flag in 1835 which is still ratified by the UN, and they were unhappy when the Union Flag replaced it in 1840. Maybe they should reinstate this instead of having a new, new flag. As we struggled to understand the guide it still didn’t make much sense. Nevertheless a restful afternoon, with fabulous views over the Bay of Islands. And the temperature wasn’t too extreme.
As an aside, while in the grounds where successive Governor Generals have planted trees, we finally caught sight of the crickets whose incessant noise has been a source of bemusement ever since we heard them first back in Armidale (or maybe even before). We saw them in profile on the branches, having never been able to see which insect (or bird) was making the amazingly loud, almost mechanical noise.
We stopped on the way to Waitangi at Kerikeri, where the nearest opticians is (fancy travelling 100km for a Specsavers appointment?) for H to have her eye pressures checked. They are a bit up but in the OK range so, with teeth and eyes duly certified we can head on with confidence. We also had lunch there in a rather unpromising trading estate in a café called Lygon which had really interesting food; H had what was called “Brekkie Pie”, a cooked breakfast in a pastry case which was much tastier than it sounds. Also we shared some carrot cake which was up in the “largest slice of carrot cake” stakes (Melbourne still winning).
I’ve never said farewells to a man in a knee-length rubber milking apron before, but we said thanks and goodbye to Eileen at the house and then popped round by the milking parlour to say goodbye to Tony, past the cows waiting patiently outside. He appeared in the door in his cow-shed mural, then off we went down the gravel one last time.
M had a date with the dentist; same M.O., same price. We then set off down the west coast, past Ahipara and its huge sand dunes at the bottom end of 90 Mile Beach. The road is quiet and twists over volcanic wooded valleys and hills, until we eventually come to Hokianga Harbour, a vast inlet of sea water. We are aiming to cross this by the small car ferry which leaves on the hour. We arrive about 10.15, so have a bit of a wait; there is unfortunately no coffee here, just a jetty, we should have stopped in the little village of Kohukohu 3km previously, had we known. However the ferry is full when it leave so it wouldn’t have done to be late.
After that we come to the villages of Oponomi and Omapere at the mouth of the harbour. There are magnificent sand hills across the water and some impressive photo stops as we go past the south heads. This is probably the most attractive scenery we have seen north of Auckland - well, that and 90 Mile Beach. Southwards we enter the remaining Kauri forests, where there are stops to see the God of the Forest, the largest known existing Kauri, probably 2000 years old. The Kauri is distinctive in that it has a tall, clean stem with a crown of branches. There are others that we can see as we drive but you have to walk to see the biggest ones, so we make do with No 1 as we are getting hungry. So we think we will drive to the nearest town, Dargaville, which is not very far away but the road winds around every single tree in the forest as far as we can see, and takes forever. When we get there it is a bit rundown and there is nowhere to park anywhere we fancy, so we set off again which might have been a mistake as now there is NOTHING, just farms. Eventually we find a café around 2pm where we get a very basic burger, not up to New Zealand standards though perfectly edible.
Pressing on, we decided to give the Kauri museum a miss as we feel we have seen a lot of the things it purports to show already in Kaitaia. Also it suggests you need quite a long time to see it properly and we are still 2 hours or so from Auckland. So we press on, rejoining horrible Highway 1 briefly before setting off again around the coastal loop. It has gone grey by now so the views from the top are not as amazing as they might have been, and we feel we are in the back of beyond once more until we get to Helensville which still has some shadows of a previous glory. Then, suddenly, we are in the outer suburbs of Auckland and rush hour!
We’re at a motel whose unique selling point is a guitar-shaped swimming pool. So this blog is about to end as a dip is required! Being back in the big city is hot and sweaty; hopefully it will cool down a bit later.