Episode 1: Auckland to the Coromandel
Peninsula
Pohutakawa blossom
Carving on Mauri War Canoe
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Episode 2: Coromandel to Waitomo
Episode 1: Page 1 of 2 Auckland to Russell
Friday, 7 December
2001, Thames, Coromandel Penninsula
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Episode 1: Page 2 Matauri Bay to Pinnacle Peak
Kia Ora from
Kiwiland!
From what we have heard, Canada was experiencing a
very mild November. Maybe it is getting to look a little
more like Christmas now. It certainly is not here. After
a week of rainy weather, it is finally improving and the
sun is out sending the temperatures into the mid 20s
during the day. We were relatively lucky. There were
torrential rains causing flooding and road closures just
south of where we were, but for us, it always cleared up
enough to allow us to do almost everything we had planned.
We have toured Auckland, gone to the Bay of Islands and
Cape Reinga, walked through a Kauri forest and on the
Coromandel Penninsula, we have taken our first overnight
tramp.
But I must start at the beginning of our Kiwi
adventure. The plane touched down just after 1 PM local
time November 23. We took the bus into Auckland, checked
into our room in the YMCA, and a couple of hours later we
were the proud owners of a 1986 Honda Accord. Don’t
laugh, the car is not that old in Kiwi years. We were
told the best place to locate a second hand car was the
notice board in the Auckland Backpackers Hostel, so as
soon as we checked into our room at the Auckland YMCA,
that’s where we headed. We were reading through the
advertisements of the cars and vans offered for sale on
their notice board when a young British girl arrived with
a handwritten notice to pin up with the others. She asked
us if we would like to see the car, so we followed her
outside where her boyfriend was trying to find a parking
place for the car. We ended up all going for a test
drive, agreeing on a price (NZ$1,200) and settling the
matter in short order. Ray took her in to get her tuned
up before we left Auckland and all she needed was an oil
change, one new-to-us tire and new windshield wipers. She
had been performing like a charm ever since. Touch wood.
We can only hope we have as little trouble selling the
car to someone else when we are ready to leave NZ at the
end of February!
Now as we explore the kiwi highways and byways, I find
myself singing
Alice the Honda has 4 wheels,
Alice the Honda has 4 wheels,
Alice the Honda has 4 wheels,
Go Alice go, put, put put.
When we arrived in Auckland, back on Nov 23, we called
friends of the Potters, Ivan and Barbara Reilly, both
professors at the University of Auckland, to say hello.
They met us on Saturday and kindly gave us a tour of part
of Auckland and afternoon tea at Mission Beach, a popular
weekend picnic and swimming spot for Auckland families.
They pointed out the native Pohutukawa, kiwi Christmas
tress, growing on sheer rock faces all along the shores
of Auckland. They were just coming into bloom and their
large pom-poms of red flowers, dotted with gold centers,
made quite a display.
Sunday was our Auckland tourist day. In the morning we
visited the War Memorial Museum, housed in a beautiful
neo-classical building in a park high on a hill
overlooking Auckland. We went especially to learn more
about Maori culture, so we attended a short performance
of Maori singing and dancing. As part of the audience
participation, Ray volunteered me to learn how to use the
Poi balls. These are soft balls tethered on a short rope
that you swing rhythmically to the music. I could perform
the introductory movements, but flopped badly as soon as
it got more complicated. I’ll stick to my day job of
backpacking. The museum also had an excellent collection
of Maori and Pacific Island artifacts and a large natural
history section that we explored.
After leaving the museum, we drove past the Auckland
Rose Gardens that Barbara Reilly had recommended to us,
so in we went. The garden covered more than an acre and
the roses were in full bloom, creating quite a display.
Obviously the Auckland climate is kind to roses, as the
bushes were far larger than the varieties we can grow in
Ottawa.
Our last stop for the day was at Kelly Tarlton’s
Antartic Encounter and Underwater World. This aquarium,
housed in converted stormwater holding tanks, was the
inspiration of a local diver, Kelly Tarlton. The Antartic
exhibit consisted of a life-size replica of Scott’s 1911
Antartic hut and a penguin colony, complete with baby
penguin chicks. I found the hut very interesting,
especially the actual film sequences of both Scott’s and
Shackelton’s expeditions.
We spent quite a bit of time in the aquarium. The fish
swim on either side and overhead as you walk through a
clear acrylic tunnel. The lighting is suitably low to
give you the feeling you are actually scuba diving. One
half housed varieties of fish found around NZ, including
huge turtles, moray eels and small sting rays. The other
half was the shark tank where menacing looking sharks up
to 10 feet long floated by, crossing paths with sting
rays about 6 ft across. Apparently, when sharks are first
introduced to the tanks, trainers have to swim with them
to teach them about walls and how to maneuver through
tunnels.
There is a fascinating island, Rangitoto, in the
Hauraki Gulf, that we explored on Monday. Rangitoto
erupted from the sea about 600 years ago and is now a
nature reserve. We took a ferry boat from Auckland
harbour to try out the walking trails. Shortly after
starting up the broad walking trail to the summit, we saw
what looked like newly ploughed fields of black earth, except
it wasn’t earth. It was clumps of hardened black lava
streams that had flowed down the mountain during the
original eruption. In the intervening years, lichens
covered the rocks, died off leaving hummus to support the
bushes, ferns and Pohutukawa tress that cover the island.
At the summit, we had a picnic lunch and admired the
great view of Auckland and its suburbs. We took a circle
trail around the crater, which is now covered with trees
and bushes but still retains its original sunken form. A
short distance down the hill, there were a few lava caves
to explore. They were formed when the top layer of lava
cooled before the molten lava streams had stopped their
flow. We walked through a few tunnels, feeling our way
carefully in the dark, until we could see daylight at the
end.
Our sightseeing in Auckland done, we headed north to
the Bay of Islands on the hilly main highway #1. We
stopped for coffee in Warkworth, a small tourist town
with funky pottery stores. Thus fortified, we decided to
try our luck on the sideroads leading to the east coast.
Goodbye traffic, such as it was. The road to Mangawhai
Head wound up and down steep hills and dropped to the
ocean at Lango Beach. The day was cool and windy, so we
ended up eating a picnic lunch in the car and carrying
on, rejoining Hwy 1 for a while, then taking another side
road to Helena Bay and Oakura. Once again the quiet roads
wound up and down hills and through forests. The route
was scenic but it was getting late so we headed for the
small tourist town of Russell in the Bay of Islands. This
turned out to be a good choice. We had our best room to
date in a very nice backpackers lodge, complete with
communal kitchen facilities, and there we stayed for
three nights.
Our sailing friends would love the Bay of Islands, but
we opted to see the islands with a commercial tour
company. Wednesday we signed up for a day-long trip
through the islands. The Fuller’s boat we were on stops
at several of the islands to deliver the mail, as they
have done for 50 years. The captain of the tour boat is
definitely in the good books with the local dogs as they
get fed a biscuit when they come to the dock to greet the
boat.
The tour boat stopped on the largest island,
Urukapuka, for a lunch break. Ray and I had brought a
picnic lunch with us so we headed out on a walk to a
hilltop to see the view. There were even benches
conveniently located for our lunch. After lunch, we
decided to explore the many other paths leading to yet
other peaks. We ended up walking along a cliff on one
side of the island and descending to a beach where a
group of wet-suited tourists from another tour boat were
having lunch after swimming with dolphins. We are saving
this popular activity for our visit to the South Island,
hoping the weather will warm up by then.
At 2 PM it was back in the boat to
see the Hole in the Rock. This is a huge archway through
a rock in the sea, large enough for the tour boats to go
through. When we were there the skies were grey and the
winds were whipping the waves up and through the passage.
Our boat took three tries before being able to maneuver
through the opening in the rock. We all clapped.
Just outside the Hole in the Wall passage was a
huge school of silvery blue fish, swimming near the
surface, eating the plankton that was plentiful in that
area. On our way back to Russell we passed a pod of
dolphins leaping out of the water on their way somewhere.
We were satisfied we had seen all the sights of the Bay.
The next day was our Russell Walks day. In the
morning we walked up to Flagstaff Hill, the sight of
symbolic resistance by the Maori residents against
English settlement, the first in NZ. The flagstaff was
chopped down four times by the Maoris in 1845, resulting
in the destruction of Russell by the enraged English.
Peace was finally restored and the Maori flag now flies
for 12 days each year. No flag was flying when we visited.
From Flagstaff Hill we walked to Tapeka Point, the
site of the original Maori Pa, or fortified town. From
there we watched the tour boats set out for the day. We
were glad we had gone the day before as the weather was
starting to worsen and the distant islands were cloaked
in mist. To get back to town, we followed the
beach route. The description of the hike had warned us
that the trail was impassable at high tide. The tide was
about half way out and we had a few problems to overcome.
We rounded one rocky point only to be stopped by a
channel, a little too wide to jump across. After
retracing our steps and not finding an alternate route,
we tried again and this time the tide had lowered enough
to uncover two rocks we could step on to get across. We
like a challenge.
We made it back to Russell in time for a nice lunch in
one of the several restaurants on the waterfront. That
meant we had to walk off lunch, so we set off for Long
Beach. This was a short 1 K walk to another bay over a
ridge behind the town of Russell. More vistas to enjoy.
Read Next Episode 1: Page 2 Matauri Bay to Pinnacle Peak
Read about our visits to the
Cook Islands or
Fiji
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