Almost a month has passed since I last (b)logged in during which we
recovered completely from our international travelling wog, sought ‘flu
injections, caught up with medical, dental and beauty professionals to attend
to long overdue matters. We dragged dying or dead vegetation’s about our Parua
Bay section that already piled in one corner, now ready to be moved to another
for incineration. The weather proved kind for such activity although we were
rather horrified to find our bonfires still glowing in the darkness three days
after the conflagration which just goes to prove how dangerous fires are! We
popped in and out of my parents’ riverside apartment to pay our respects and
enjoy their traditional home cooking.
Then after a fortnight back “home” in Whangarei, we headed south once
more to catch up with two of our children and their families, our earlier
visits all too cursory.
Alas our updated and larger motorhome no longer fits down Larissa’s
driveway, so we were glad to have the Waihi Beach RSA available us to park our
wheels; we are so often grateful to be a member of such a well-respected
association, the NZMCA. Like so many
family visits, we spent much of our time sitting about catching up on the life
and times of our family, eating even more fabulous home cooking although
Larissa’s is not so much traditional as international.
The highlight of our visit there on the northern corner of the Bay of
Plenty was a walk in the Karangahape Valley. We have done several lovely walks
here, a short distance from the “beach” back toward the inland town of Paeroa,
and always so enjoyable, not least those portions that are part of the Hauraki
cycle trail. This particular day, we walked up the Waitawheta River gorge
toward the Dickey Flat DOC camp, although not all the way through given time
constraints, which conveniently tied in with a collapse in the weather. India
had to be returned to Waihi for her Cheerleader’s class, so the walk was
abandoned and as we walked back along the narrow pathway high above the river, remnants
of long abandoned gold workings hanging even higher from the mountain side
above us, we vowed to return, but next time with a packed lunch and a full day
to walk all the way through and return.
We had a week to fill before catching up with our youngest and his
family in Auckland, so headed north up into the Coromandels after more coffee
and cake with Larissa on the Monday morning. We called into the supermarket at Waihi
and replenished our perishable provisions, although this proved to be
unnecessary; these days there are many reasonably priced supermarkets up and
down this rugged coast.
The road to Whiritoa heads westward from the still busy mining township
of Waihi, across the first of the steep roads we were to encounter over the
following few days. It was here on the coast that a very dear friend of our
son-in-law was drowned a couple of years ago. At the time I wondered why they
would have “popped” across to enjoy the surf one pre-Christmas afternoon, but
arriving there ourselves, the sun shining on the blue Pacific Ocean, the
pohutakawas lush and attractive, even without their summer blooms, we could
understand the ure for more mobile and unencumbered leisure seeking males.
These types used to think nothing of driving a couple of hundred kilometres
down to Auckland from Whangarei for a Wendy’s hamburger, or at least that was
not an uncommon outing for my older son before he took on a wife children and a
mortgage.
Whiritoa really is lovely, its 1.5 kilometres beach stretching from a
small lagoon at one end to a stretch of surf beach, steep, causing the waves to
break directly on to the sand. The permanent population of just a hundred or
so, swells to over a thousand over the New Year holiday period. It had a
convenience store, a library and a volunteer department, and a surf lifesaving
club that comes to life in the summertime. The day we called there was no-one
but a local walking their dog along the beach, and for us who prefer the more isolated
spots; Whiritoa was just perfect on such a day.
I was intrigued to learn the history of the sand dunes: early Maori
communities removed most of the coastal forest and dune plants, farmers then introduced
livestock onto the dune area disturbing the native sand binding grasses and
causing severe wind erosion. And then to make matters even worse, sand was
mined from the beach for over fifty years! A total of 180,000 cubic metres was
removed. The last of the dunes has subsequently covered by housing, development
starting in the 1960s when we Kiwis started to have time and the resources to
seek the seaside bach.
On over another steep section of the coastline, and down to
Whangamata which we found far more attractive than on our last visit, even
without, or perhaps because of, the lack
of summer holidaying crowds. We noted that the “free” camping spots up the
inner harbour were now no longer available and so checked the Directory once
more and gave “John” a call. He and his wife have a small horticultural unit on
the northern edge of the town, a CAP which we have decided we prefer to POPs,
where it is clear we could expect a charge. We plugged into power beside his
machinery shed above the avocado trees and availed ourselves to his excellent
hospitality, albeit well lubricated and rather tardy.
He turned up in the morning apologising for his impromptu entertainment
and invited us across to his home, which he proudly showed us. The tour was
completed with time spent in his extensive workshop admiring his classic car,
his boats and all manner of weird and wonderful machinery that only a keen
amateur engineer could accumulate. We finally bade him farewell, promising to
call again when we were next this way, and in the hope we would meet his wife
who was presently absent attending to family commitments further afield.
Our brief drive around Whangamata made it clear to us the
place had grown hugely since we stayed a couple of nights one New Year’s even
nearly twenty years ago. For me that experience was not a pleasant memory; I
recalled the drunken louts in the camping ground, noisey and a deterrant to one
needing to walk across the camp to meet the call of nature during the
celebrations. This time, we were able to see the place free of parting
teenagers and students, far more appealing although I accept the commercial
sector of the town looks forward on one level to that summer madness.
The 2001 census reported a population of nearly 4,000, and since then it
has decreased; 3,555 in 2006 and 3,471 in 2013. This surprised me; the place
looked so much more substantial. Surely the summertime crowds have increased
over those years? New Year’s celebrations, sometimes newsworthy for all the
wrong reason, swell to 25,000.
The town has two ocean beaches, both safe for swimming and surfing, as
well as the safe boating harbour at the north end of town. It is here in this
latter that we hired kayaks all those years ago to battle the tides and winds;
an experience I recalled as we drove around to the new marina.
The development of the marina has been controversial, and familiar to us
even before John told us of his involvement and his own financial toll. The local
Ngati Puu, together ith greenies and surfies opposed the development and the
battle was fought over many years through the Environmental Court. It created a
lot of ill feeling in the community and will be a thorn in the community until
those involved are long gone. The marina finally opened in 2009, although that
was not the end of the battles; some yet to be pursued.
Thirty six
kilometres north of Whangamata is Tairua, a charming quiet spot on the western
shore of the Taurua River mouth, directly across from the more trendy and
sophisticated Pauanui. Years ago when my uncle and aunt lived here, I climbed
to the top of Paku Hill, from which one has spectacular views over Pauanui and
the Pacific shore. My uncle, even then in his very senior years used to scramble
down the cliff edge from here to fish, seeking peace from the hustle and bustle
of this little seaside village and for food for their table.
Some years
ago when we cam through in our motorhome we had come upon a market and wandered
up and down the streets with holiday markets, of the less frantic and undressed
kind, enjoying the crafts for sale. Tairua, with a permanent population of just
over 1,200 seems to offer a laid back charm but still manage to offer serious
commercial services, unlike say Coromandel which you feel lives in another
century.
We checked
out the dump here, not quite sure what lay ahead and found it adequate although
without a drinking water supply.
Another forty kilometres on, past rural Coroglen and up and over more
coastal hills, we pulled into the south end of Whitianga. How that has changed since we
last called! We found ourselves a spot on the canals for lunch, wandered about,
admiring the modern homes and the quaint little huts erected on the almost bare
sections seemingly only missing a motorhome. (I suspect the covenants do not
allow for such “abodes”.)
Unlike Whangamata, Whitianga has grown exponentially over the past
fifteen years or so; a population of 3,078 in 2001, 3,768 in the 2006 census
and 4,100 in 2013. The area is quite extensive taking in the whole area around
the harbour of the same name; Cooks Beach, Buffalo Beach…
The area has been continuously occupied since the Maoris arrived.
Captain Cook called here in 1769 observing the transit of Venus and named
Mercury Bay, just in case the Maoris didn’t already have a name for their place
of residence. Subsequent to European settlement, Whitianga was acentre for boat
building, kauri milling, flax milling, gold mining and gum digging. F oe many
tears it was a leading timber port, with sailing ships taking timber to far off
places on the other side of the world. Over a period of sixty years, it is
estimated that over 500 million feet of Kauri was exported from the district.
Today Whitianga is the Coromandel Peninsula’s eastern cebntre servicing
the fishing, farning and tourism industries. Two hundred and twenty two square
kilometres in the area is currently under a mineral prospecting licence granted
to the Waihi gold miners. It was obvisous to us as we drove up and down the
roads about that there are plenty of locals who do not want their gold dug up
out of the ground. Nimby Greenies abound in this area of luddites, but who can
blame them when their surroundings are so very beautiful.
I was intrigued
to learn that the 2013 census revealed that 39.1% of the private dwellings here
were unoccupied in census night as opposed to the New Zealand average of 11.1%.
This spells out the fact that a huge proportion of the dwellings in the area
are holiday or weekend baches.
Whitianga
sports at least two large modern supermarkets, and the people here are well
served by many shops providing all you could reasonably require in your week to
week, month to month living. Or at least if you have modest needs such as our
own.
As we wandered about the town, we found several council appointed
overnight spots, three or four parking spots tightly lined up, not allowing for
a three metres safety space to be left
between each motorhome. We could well imagine that in the summer when camping
is more popular, motorhomes would park safely leaving a park in-between, and
little whizz-bang commercial campers would wedge themselves in to the spaces.
We thought this was a rather bizarre welcome to the area; yes, you can come
camp in our county but we don’t really want you, or rather, you will not really
find this suitable. Having said that, the dump station in Whitianga was
brilliant (we filled with water) and the folk in the shops we patronised most
welcoming. However we had decided we wanted to overnight at Simpsons Beach,
where we had stayed about fifteen years ago.
We headed north, leaving Mercury Bay, up and over another steep
ridge and down to Wharekaho Beach. On the northern end we found the farm gates
to this camp, pretty much unchanged since our last stay. While the position is
delightful, a spot between rural ponds and pine tree lined beach, there is little
else here for one’s $10, although we must concede that $10 a night during the
busy summer months must indeed seem a boon. There were only about half a dozen
of us here; we enjoyed the peace broken only by the call of the gulls and
ducks, the bleating of sheep and the night call of the morepork.
In the morning, up and over more bush clad hills and down to
Matarangi, which seemed little changed in the intervening years. We found our
way to a picnic spot near the beach and walked a kilometre or so along the
grassy park lands, again devoid of the masses, watching the gulls and smelling
the sea.
Matarangi was the precursor to Pauanui; a smart well designed development
in the 1980s, before New Zealand had too
many “gated communities”, covering a four kilometres long white sand spit
around “Bob Charles” designed golf course. Today there are about three hundred permanent
residents increasing to over seven thousand holiday residents. There are little
services apart from the restaurant at the golf resort and it seems as if it
never really took off, but the perhaps that is the way the folk like it. I
suspect money was lost by those who invested rather than chose to settle for
the lifestyle.
I was keen to check out Whangapoua on the northern entrance of the
harbour of the same name, and we were not disappointed. This is indeed
charming, but like so many of these intimate spots along both coasts of the
peninsular, has little space for those who do not have access or ownership to
the cluster of baches.
Back at Te Rerenga at the head of this shallow harbour, the road
rises up and over the backbone of the land. At the road summit one can stop and
walk even higher, to a vantage point with views to the west over Coromandel and
back to the east from whence one has travelled. As we descended to the wide
Coromandel Harbour, I missed the engine brakes of our old motorhome, although
had appreciated the added power on the eastern ascent. At sea level we turned
north and travelled the short distance to Coromandel, a truly charming seaside
town, once a thriving gold town.
There is much to be seen about Coromandel, however this time we
were not interested in travelling on north to Colville and the beautiful DOC
camps, or to Barry Bricknell’s pottery, or even to take a fishing charter out
into the Hauraki Gulf. We had checked these attractions out in the past and
this time had but a few days to retrace just some of our past travelled paths.
Here in the town we found a couple of Council blessed spots marked
out in a similar fashion as those seen in Whitianga, none of which appealed.
Instead we checked out a POP up Hauraki Road to find the recent rainfall had
made it currently unworkable, so settled, happily so, closer to town with Max
and Val who offered not only power and a secure spot for the night, but the use
of separate utilities, all for their very modest fee.
I have always though that “Coromandel was the capital of the
Coromandel” and so it might have been in the gold mining days. Nowadays it has
a population of just over 1,600 and is a sleepy seaside town that draws the
holiday makers from Auckland across the Firth of Thames.
The town was named after the peninsula, which was in turn named after
HMS Coromandel, which sailed into the harbour in 1820. Once the harbour was a
major port serving the peninsula’s gold mining and kauri industries; these days
recreational fishing, tourism and a thriving mussel farming operation keep the
town on its feet. A large proportion of the population are alternative life-stylers,
the more enterprising growing olives and avocados, the less pottering away with
their crafts and art, building up their stock for the summer markets and no
doubt living off our taxes in the interim. (I appreciate I might well incur the
wrath of some by making such a statement.)
We left the next morning vowing to return when we were next in the
area, especially if it were in the offseason as now.
We travelled southward along the eastern shore of the Firth of
Thames; what a stunning coastline it is, even without the flaming floral New
Zealand Christmas Trees. There are a number of wonderful spots along this
shoreline where self-contained motorhomes can stop over, and all of them a
hundred times more appealing than the marked spots in the towns. Alas we were
now on a time schedule so did not stop even for our lunch, instead pressing on
to Thames where we stocked up at the excellent supermarket there, found a
picturesque spot for our lunch, unloaded our bikes and cycled the short five
kilometre stage of the Hauraki Cycleway as far as the Kopu bridge and back,
then settled into our last, but certainly not least, CAP in Thames. Vera kept
us entertained with her stories of yesteryears and made our own travelling and
motorhome experiences seem very modest. Would that we live as long and as well as
she has!
