8 March 2019 - Parua Bay, Whangarei Harbour, Northland

Almost a month on and how the days are already closing in, although this is partly due to the artificial constraints of daylight savings, or at least to blame for the dull mornings. We wake to temperatures of about 13 degrees C but enjoy days where the temperatures reach the mid-20s. Until today, there has been little rain which has served us well, allowing us to enjoy the outdoors and to minimise the growth of our expansive “lawn”.

The little flock of quails, all eleven of them, are venturing out further each day, to our great joy, although the smaller flock of goldfinches which had fed on the seedheads directly below our camper have disappeared since Chris last felled the crop of weeds. In the evenings and early mornings, the wax-eyes and fantails enjoy the insects gathering in the privet which continues to flower in profusion, this causing us to stay with our daily dose of antihistamines.

One evening just recently, I was drawn out into the dusk by the strangest of cries, first thinking it might be a kiwi, given that kiwis were on my mind. Instead I found a quartet of kakas circling above our camp, squawking and screeching as only these native parrots can do, before disappearing over the pururi trees and across the neighbour’s farm.

Kiwi were on my mind because just a day or two before we had had the interesting experience of attending a “kiwi release evening” along at the community hall. Signs along the road had announced the upcoming event and we, along with several hundred other Whangarei Heads and Parua Bay residents, arrived in time to gather on the slopes above the rugby field, to be educated by a clutch of fanatical kiwi conservators and meet the  partly grown birds before they were taken down into the bush to be set free. The speaker held us spellbound for an hour before the birds were taken around to be introduced to us, then most headed home for their delayed dinner as we did.

The chicks had been taken from their nests in the local area and removed to Limestone Island in the Whangarei Harbour, the island acting as a predator-free nursery, then six months or so on, at a size large enough to defend themselves from errant cats or stoats, moved onto the mainland to join their kin here. In fact there are kiwi in our backyards here, although one is unlikely to meet them; we keep different hours. 

The good news is that with the vigilence of these people, and support of the locals, the kiwi population in the Whangarei Heads area has grown from just eighty in 2001 to over 500 in 2014; needless to say that statistic is a little out of date, which certainly leaves room for a much higher figure for today’s current population.

Apart from heaps of educational opportunities about kiwis at this gathering, there was a stall all about weed control, and here, not only were we informed about the ways to rid ourselves of the moth plant, woolly nightshade and other unwelcome flora, we were given a pottle of poison, some gloves and a book to guide us on our crusade against invasive flora.

We also had an opportunity to view the people who make the community in this part of the district rather wonderful.

Last week we managed to get away again, this sounding as if we live some sort of forced imprisonment, but not meant at all. We spent six nights away from our section; although all were within a day’s drive of Whangarei had we needed to rush back.

We left Whangarei via the north coast route, up through Tikipunga, past the Whangarei Falls and on toward Ngunguru. It’s a lovely drive through to the coast, and one we have done on numerous occasions although not lately. At the northern end of the seaside settlement, we drove out beyond the school to a spot with lovely views across to the Spit and back to the village strung along the estuary shore. Here we paused for a cuppa, and a small walk. The tide was out or at least on the turn, fellow tourists a scarcity.

On up the coast, following the road around the rugged scrub covered hills, we turned east just before Tutukaka and headed out to the end of the road, parking up in a delightful spot at Wellingtons Bay, or more correctly Whangaumu Bay. From here one can look all the way back to Ngunguru again, and down the coast toward Pataua and Ocean Beach. There is space for three campers here in a designated council blessed camping spot although by the time night fell, there were five of us squeezed in between the signs.

But before opening our evening bottle of red, we walked the length of the settlement, and marvelled at the development that has gone on here in the last few decades since we were last here. We returned along the shore, trying valiantly not to disturb the terns, oyster catchers and gulls resting on the hard sand, all waiting for the tide to reveal a natural feast.

The next morning we were fascinated to observe a fellow on the beach with his car and trailer gathering seaweed; we have yet to understand whether this was a legal activity, whether the gathering of seaweed for one’s garden or for sale is allowed? Perhaps he was just tidying up the beach, because it certainly looked pristine after he left.

Back on the road, we continued on past Tutukaka, Matapouri and Sandy Bay before heading west and inland again to Hikurangi where we pulled into Waro Lake for lunch, and stretched our legs doing the Yvonne Stewart Track around the lake.

Here the scars of past industry have been attractively covered up with plantings and the efforts of the Friends of Lake Waro, the community group formed in 1999. Today there are parking and picnic areas, and a well mown pathway wending its way about the lake edge and through the outcrops of limestone which escaped past mining, with well-placed benches on which to rest and enjoy the scene.

The area was quarried between 1922 and 1974 by Wilsons Portland Cement Company, now Golden Bay Cement. Prior to that and after the limestone rocks were uncovered by a fire in 1888, burnt lime was produced for agriculture on the site until 1917.

Beneath all of this, the Hikurangi Coal Company operated a coal mine from 1913 until it closed during the First World War, then reopened in 1921, finally closing in 1933 due to flooding. However the limestone quarrying continued on until 1974 when operations were transferred to a site on the other side of the main highway, leaving this for development for leisure pursuits.

There are no signs here to forbid camping, but nor are there any to encourage it, so we did file it in our memory banks as a possible future stopover spot, although we would be averse to staying here on any night between Thursday to Sunday. There has been a lot of work done in recent times to paint over the graffiti on the fluted outcrops of limestone, which suggest that the local riffraff like to spend time here too.

From here we travelled north on State Highway One to Kawakawa, then on north to Kerikeri where we found our way to the NZMCA Park at Rainbow Falls.  The club park over property was full of motorhomes and caravans,  proving it is indeed one of the club’s most popular parks. We checked out the falls and found the water levels lower than normal and a surprising number of folk swimming in the deep pool beneath the cascade.

After a night battling buzzing and biting mosquitos, we spent the following morning checking out Kerikeri, expecting it to be buzzing too. For a Saturday morning it was remarkably quiet, and not as impressive as I remembered. But there is a smarter class of people about here in this little oasis and we spent some time chatting with one of them after browsing in the real estate agent’s window. This lovely lady was an import from Auckland as so many of Kerikeri’s smarter set are. She seemed keen to have us join the set too; whether that was because she thought we would fit well or whether she just wanted to bolster her commissions, I guess we will never know.

We did come across an amazing sculpture in the domain that has been there since 2009, an arrangement of boulders up to eleven metres high topped by cast bronze shells, orchestrated by Chris Booth whose work seems to pop up all about the North. Perhaps we have seen it before, and if we did, then perhaps it’s not so amazing after all, to have not left an impression, however this time I did notice it.

Interestingly there was quite a furore raised over this; half a million dollars was donated by an anonymous donor and the council had to come up with another lump sum to cover the cost of the base and landscaping, much of this kept hush-hush until the incoming council in 2011 discovered there was still a $129,000 debt arising from all of this. I do wonder how much of this Chris Booth managed to pocket; he certainly doesn’t have the demeanour of a wealthy man, or at least did not when Chris and I attended an art exhibition of his about fifteen years ago.

After lunching near the dump, as you do, we headed up and out of town across mostly well farmed land to the coast on the northern arm of the Bay of Islands.  Some of this land is farmed by Land Corp and some by wealthy station owners, such as the extensive 1133 hectare Mataka Station and 338 hectares Mountain Landing Farm, both of which feature on the internet under the words “subdivision”, “private”, “high security hideaway”  and “conservation-minded wealthy”.

But we were here to revisit Marsden Cross, now the Rangihoua Heritage Park, a spot we had called and walked some years back. Since then there has been major development of this historic site, and we were absolutely delighted to find it so.

The mission settlement on the shore of Rangihoua Bay far below the park entrance was the first European settlement in New Zealand, its very existence thanks to the protection of Chief Ruatara whose pa can still be detected on a nearby hilltop. There the Reverend Samuel Marsden first proclaimed the Christian message in this country on Christmas day 1814, laying the first seeds of Christianity.

The well-formed track down into the bay is apparently a thirty minute walk each way, however it took us an extra half hour because we studied all the interpretative panels and displays along the way, all twenty of so of them.

Above the site, near the car park, stands a massive structure with little functionality but to screen the sun and rain from the visitor. The side walls are of rammed earth, and the roof appears to float above them like wings, framing the scene; the Rangihoua Pa site on the hill down to the right and the mission site at the base of the valley. The building was featured in the New Zealand exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016, which serves also to suggest it is indeed an interesting structure. The revamped site was opened in December 2014, two hundred years after that first service, something I think is quite wonderful.

Samuel Marsden who had been based in Parramatta after arriving in Australia in 1794, met up with Te Pahi, an adventurous kinsman of Ruatara and they formed what would be believed by each party, a symbiotic relationship. Much of this I learned about Te Pahi, saddened me; there were so many enterprising Maori around 1800 and thereafter, eager to learn the language and ways of those that came from the other side of the world, who did so well, that success measured by both cultures. Two hundred years later we seem to be overwhelmed instead by stories of how the poor Maori cannot get ahead and are held back (by their beneficiary attitude). What happened to stop the progress that was so vibrant one to two hundred years ago? Did the confiscations after the Land Wars poison everything to that degree? As I said, it just made me sad.

Anyway it was Ruatara who followed Te Pahi and had his own adventures, even travelling to England to meet King George III (unsuccessfully) and to learn the ways of the modern world in Australia. Ruatara spent eight months with Marsden in Australia, then reciprocated the hospitality. Chances are he did not quite understand to what degree that invitation would be accepted, because the mission lasted for some time down on the beach below the pa. But in return, the tribe were taught to read the Bible, wear European clothes, grown grain for bread, serve tea in dainty cups and generally become “civilised”.  

Although Ruatara died soon after the “Active”, Marsden’s own ship, arrived, his father-in-law, Rakau, honoured the agreement and continued the tribe’s protection while the mission remained.

Samuel Marsden established three missions in the Bay of Islands; this one, one in Paihia set up in 1823 run by Reverend Henry Williams and another close to Hongi Hika’s village at Kerikeri in 1819. However it was not until 1826 the first Maori man, a man called Rangi, succumbed to baptism; this preaching and business of religious conversion was a tough one.

By 1827 there were only two missionary families left at Rangihoua, and five years later, the mission closed with those remaining moving to the station at Te Puna about two kilometres west.

Samuel Marsden died in Sydney in 1837 just three years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. Apart from learning about his bringing Christianity to these fair shores when I was at primary school, we have come upon mention of him in various places about, here and in Australia as well as books I have read, and more recently I read of some less than positive attributes about the man. Alas these holy-rollers are not always the paragons of virtue we were brought up to believe. I must do some more research to dig up that scandal.

Needless to say we were hugely impressed by our visit to the Rangihoua Heritage Park, now more aptly named.

We returned to the mosquito haven at the top of the falls, but made sure we sprayed the van out with half a can of fly spray before retiring for the night.

The next morning we drove up onto the plateau of farmland inland from Kerikeri, past the airport, south east of the Pukeiti Forest, to Okaihau, to intersect with a small section of the Twin Coast Cycleway, which mostly follows the disused railway line.

Okaihau is perched on a high ridge at the heart of the Mid-North, 262 metres above sea level, which is quite high given its short distance from the coast and given that we are not considering terrain like Australia’s eastern escarpments.

 

From a European perspective, it too has been long settled, even by New Zealand standards. Chief Tamati Waka Nene (another name I learned of at primary school - our New Zealand history was not so lacking after all!) made 4,000 acres available to the government under the Homestead Act in 1864 so that settlors could purchase the land. Canadian settlors from Nova Scotia arrived at the land development frontier that was early Okaihau, and settled, building their log cabins and planting wheat. These earlier Europeans, alongside Maori, soon moved into flax processing, timber, gum, mining and farming. Descendants of these folk remain today.

But actually it is Tamati Waka Nene’s support of the British troops that I recall from my school days; he built a pa here in 1845 and fought beside the troops in their attack on the pa of Hone Heke near the shore of Lake Omapere.

I was curious to read that much later, much much later, the first Tongan licenced preschool in New Zealand was established here in Okaihau in the early 1980s. This is not something you would associate with the Mid-North, or more particularly, with Okaihau.

There is a little parking spot beside the cycleway, toilets and a couple of camping spots provided, but not level enough for a motorhome as big as ours. We ended up finding our way up to the domain where a group of locals were setting themselves up for a Country music jam session. They said we were welcome to join them; a gold coin donation was all it cost, however we had plans to do some exercise.

The cycleway has no distance markers, a disappointment for those on foot who wish to applaud themselves for every kilometre walked, but I reckon we walked five to six kilometres south toward Kaikohe, our turning spot well along the lakeside, although the path is some distance from the shore. We could see large flock of what were probably geese settled on the western side of Lake Omapere, identifying them as birds as opposed to abandoned fertiliser bags because they all rose into the air from time to time.

The builders of this particular cycleway have been frustrated by an unwillingness of some of the landholders to welcome or accommodate the thoroughfare for the fit, so some of the pathway takes a long winded detour through attractive patches of scrub and bush, thus making distance calculations even more complicated. It was a very hot day, and while clad in shorts, hatted sensibly and carrying water, it was hard work.

The dozen or so cyclists who passed us made much better time, but then they did not get time to marvel at the graveyard of port-a-loos down in the gully, or enjoy the flowering ginger and convolvulus , blackberries (which one does not dare eat here in New Zealand in case they have been sprayed), gorse, pungas and flax, or talk to the large herd of curious dairy cows, or wave to the farmer on his four wheel motorbike; walking has its advantages.

Back in Okaihau, we commiserated with the owner of the rather drab food store, a man of Indian origin with poor English, who suffered the pranks of the “naughty kids”  in and around his store, as much as the signs that had been vandalised in just the time it had taken us to walk our ten kilometres or whatever. I would have described these miscreants in stronger language, and he probably does too, when he holds his wife at night and wonders why they bothered coming here away from the city, and when they have to board their shop windows up, and, and and… Probably better here than owning a liquor store in South Auckland! I imagine the profit on the sale of a couple of ice-creams hardly made it worth keeping his doors open on this Saturday afternoon.

From here we drove back over the pleasant  rural landscape to Waimate North and parked up in the night at the Showgrounds where NZMCA members are made welcome and offered the convenience of power all for the modest donation of $10 (actually a monetary defined donation is no longer a donation, it is a fee). We have stayed here a couple of times before, and this time was even lovelier than the other times.  Absolutely no one came to disturb or distract our peaceful evening amongst the massive old puriri trees, not even to check on the adjisted horses nearby.

Our trip north had been suggested by my husband, so while I offered a few ideas as to how we might fill our days (walking that small portion of the Coast to Coast Cycleway being one of them) I left my husband and principal driver to call the shots. The next day we drove further up the coast, the loop that takes one to Matauri Bay and around to Kaeo via Whangaroa on the harbour of the same name, then back down Highway 10 to Waipapa near the Kerikeri Rainbow Falls park.

Chris had imagined us spending a good part of the day or morning at Matauri Bay; he forgets that it continues to be a disappointment. Matauri Bay is one of the gems of the north, or at least it was when we visitors used to sprawl ourselves all over it with no regard to its private ownership.

Since 2001 development and ownership and financial disaster have plagued the bay and the local owners, with debt at one point reported at $26 million. All I know is that when you drive down into the bay nowadays, that gorgeous most picturesque bay that looks like paradise, you first see the cluster of shanties on the southern end of the bay owned and housing the traditional owners, then pass through manicured subdivision which has remained unsold since it was developed over ten years ago, and are then confronted with signs to remind one that while you are welcome to visit and look at the beach, but to remember it is private, that you should park only in the designated car parks, walk only on the clearly defined pathways, take your rubbish with you, et cetera, et cetera. All of this is quite sensible and if the land were mine, I doubt I would be letting anyone on to it. It’s just so very different from when we stayed here over twenty years ago, and I miss that.

So with a repeat dose of disappointment, we drove up out of the bay, the road a twisting steep affair, and resumed our trip north. Not too far on are the gorgeous bays of Te Ngaere and Wainui. We pulled into the first, backed up to the edge of the beach and sat over lunch with the most divine views of glistening sea, white beach and brave swimmers. This was far preferable.

Before travelling over the hill to Whangaroa, we detoured to Tauranga Bay, duly admired it then drove out. This was all about Chris today; I would have paused and walked about a little, although I have to confess that my shin splints were painful; my new walking shoes were proving the adage about getting what you pay for.

When we regained the main highway, or at least Highway 10, we switched drivers and I drove back to our camp at Kerikeri, a feat I am rarely challenged to do; I prefer to drive the car to anything the size of our camper, however one must keep one’s hand in.

The next day was to be our last full day before heading home, our schedule restricted by appointments at the bank for my mother and I. We headed south to Puketona, then east out to Paihia, driving on through this charming but busy resort, so compact that future development cannot be imagined. At Te Haumi just over the hill from Paihia, we pulled into the large layby, busy for all those enjoying their lattes and ristrettos from the coffee cart. It is indeed a fine place to enjoy one’s morning coffee; it’s just that we settled for our cups of instant.

At Opua we were perfectly in time to drive on to the car ferry, along with half a dozen other vehicles, including a ute loaded up with bee hives. Strangely the middle aged women collecting money in exchange for tickets missed us and we were off on our way, remarking at the bonus trip but accepting an invoice might arrive in the mail one day soon. We reckoned this made up for the rip off ferry trips we have paid for on other trips, one near Fort William in Scotland immediately came to mind, and that it was all a matter of life going round and round.

We joined the Russell Road at the base of the Okiato peninsula and turned right instead of left for Russell. The road wends its way around the Waikare Inlet, then rather than turning on to the gravel road that takes one through to Kawakawa via Karetu, drove on toward Rawhiti, passing the lovely but very inaccessible Jacks Bay, Parekura Bay, and Waipiro Bay , finding space in the boat park at Te Uenga Bay.

We did leave the vehicle here and walk down to the beach, encountering a couple who had just come in off their launch after a week’s stint on the water. What lovely people they were too, or at least the lady and her dog; her husband was too busy loading up their ute with the pile of gear. It turns out that they own a house out here at Parua Bay, a place we could see if we could remember the exact street number, although are working on a property between here and Auckland. We did remind them that full-time retirement was quite attractive.

We lunched back in the van, away from the intimate but charming views of the beach, before returning to the road, which was not too many years ago, a dusty jangly route around some of the north’s loveliest coastal scenery. We continued on down to Ngaiotonga, bypassing Oakura, through Mokau where the well patronised marae is undergoing extensive renovation, past the imposing gateway to some rich Russian oligarch’s retreat, up the long Helena Bay hill until we emerged back out on Highway One at Whakapara just north of Hikurangi once more.

We briefly considered a rural POP nearby, then Waro Lake, and finally decided to come on down to Whangarei, where we found a spot by the Hatea River in the Town Basin, one of our favourite spots in the city, although our least favourite corner in this particular car park. But it must be said, again, that the Whangarei District Council really does go out of its way to accommodate motor-homing travellers.

The next morning we dumped, replenished our supplies at our faithful budget supermarket, did a load of laundry, called into my mother’s for coffee where we received a welcome that suggested we had been away for a month rather than six days then headed back out onto our section to set up once more. Soon the wet washing was pegged out on the line strung up between the cabbage trees and all was well in our world.

Since I set myself to write this up, it has rained steadily, and not just here; the cricket test down in Wellington has also been rained off. Many will declare the drought has broken and there will be many happy farmers about tonight, even if they have missed the cricket.