We remain anchored to our house, tied by property related work and
family obligations. My mother is, on the whole, coping well with life, but
through habit has the world coming to her rather than the reverse. Very poor
hearing is a good excuse for this; I would most likely live the same if I were
to find myself in her shoes at that ripe old age. The extended family, all of
whom work regular jobs, have been taking full advantage of the wonderful summer
weather and the fact that New Zealand simply closes down from Christmas until
at least the middle of January. Woe betide should you need a repair done or the
services of a lawyer or surgeon. So we have passed the summer so far in a
manner that has allowed us (or me) to visit with her about every two days.
But even more demanding have been the gardens scorching under the
relentless sun, needing regular watering. That at our vacant rental is one
thing, but I must take full responsibility for tying us to my vege patch. This
is the very reason we did not have a vege garden even before we set off on our
gypsy pathway; I learned the hard way, when we would return from several weeks
holiday to find the garden a mass of desiccated twigs. So instead we are enjoying
home grown salad vegetables, lettuce and tomatoes, silver beet and herbs, all
tenderly raised by yours truly.
We did pop down to Auckland at the end of November for a couple of days,
in order to meet up with our Waihi Beach family and enjoy the live matinee
performance of “Les Miserables”. Unlike the others who had seen it live several
times before, my sole experience was the movie version which stars two of
Australia’s iconic actors making very ho-hum singing efforts. This live
performance was outstanding and I absolutely loved it! I would rather own a
filmed version of this than the other that has lingered on our shelves for some
years.
We stayed in Henderson at the NZMCA Park there which improves each time
we call, although its limited size means there will be a ceiling to improvement
at some stage soon. From there we caught the bus into the city, returning early
evening by the same. It was our first trip away with the new batteries, or at
least, without using mains power, and we were hugely disappointed when
electrical matters were still found to be wanting. So we returned to the outfit
in Silverdale, who very red faced, found it had been wired the wrong way round.
They soon remedied the situation and fitted a rather sophisticated monitor, at
a price, and so we were able to come on north, hopeful that we were super fit
for freedom camping once more.
Christmas was spent relatively quietly, my mother coming out for dinner
on Christmas Eve, the longer evenings allowing her the luxury of driving in daylight.
On Christmas day, the Waihi Beach family turned up late afternoon, having feasted in the Bay of Plenty with the other
side of the family, now after over five hours of travel, ready to feast with
us.
They stayed for three nights and we spend the middle two full days
relaxing and working our way through the leftovers and platters of food they
had contributed and those I had readied for the visit. When I was a small
child, we were urged to eat everything on our plate with references to “the
poor starving children in Biafra”. When I consider the food consumed over those
few days, I should be ashamed when I think of Biafra, and all the other Third
World countries whose inhabitants would be grateful for even a full bowl of
maize porridge, let alone wilting salads and sugary offerings.
We did head out for a picnic “to the beach” and while most in our
location would have headed eastward along the northern side of the Whangarei Harbour,
perhaps to Ocean Beach or the more sheltered McLeods Bay, or even Pataua, we
headed south and out to One Tree Point which lies just inside the southern head
of the harbour, that which is home to the log port and oil refinery. Classy,
eh!?
Picnic tables were few and shelter from the breeze sought, eventually
within view of the refinery chimneys, across the entrance from the towering
peak of Mt Aubrey, under young pohutakawa trees. The company and food was good,
the sunshine bright and warm although nothing much could be said for the
background hum and hiss of the industry about us. Please be assured, the
Whangarei Harbour is lovely; this is just not the particular spot you should
come looking for beauty.
Once sated, we drove on round to Ruakaka Beach, where we found the long
expanse of surf beach, sparsely populated by beach goers and much more to those
heralding from the surf beach of the Bay of Plenty. Only Larissa was keen to venture into the
surf, but was then discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm from us others. We all
piled back into the car and headed home for another round of food and drink.
Christmas, eh?
But none of this really qualifies for this travel blog, only our short
trip of over a week ago, when we took ourselves north to Kerikeri in search of
a piece of artwork for our upstairs lounge wall. I wrote about a year ago of
the Packhouse Markets of Kerikeri, when I went for a day trip there with my
mother and sister; this time it was a first for my husband.
Contrary to the several hours we “girls” had spent poking about nearly
every stall, and savouring the coffee and cake, Chris and I “did” the market in
less than an hour, the only thing particularly catching our fancy, the live
performance by an excellent modern jazz band called Thelonious Punk. We stood
for a while listening to them and watching what appeared to our untrained eyes,
all properly trained musicians. But unlike the Matakana markets where there is
facility for listeners to just hang about enjoying the music, the only seating
here seems more for those who are eating and drinking their purchases from the
stalls, and as we had done neither, we moved on. I am beyond standing for hours without a wall
to lean on or a bench to sit upon.
So we headed to the supermarket, bought decadent pastries and parked up
down by the Stone Store before setting off on a walk out to the Kororipo Pa
site, which sits out on a promontory
surrounded on three sides by water; that which is the Kerikeri Basin,
more famous for the Stone Store than anything else.
However in pre-European times it was an important sea port for the
Ngapuhi tribes, and according to one of the signs, Te Waha o te Riri which means the “gateway of war”. They were a
fierce lot, the Ngapuhi of the North who ventured south often to defeat enemy
tribes. But by the 1820s when the missionaries lived in the basin, they were
more co-operative, and let’s face it, the missionaries wouldn’t have lasted two
minutes without the hospitality of the Maori people.
From the pa site we walked back across the area now bordered by large
stands of gums, which was once the kainga, or village, between times of
conflict. Gorse competes for space on this hill and it’s only the regular
mowing that keeps it to a walk friendly level. We looped around back to the car
park, and then up to St James Church.
This is a charming wooden structure that looks as old as the Stone
Store, but the signage indicates otherwise. The first building for Christian
worship in New Zealand was erected on a spot behind the current church in 1824.
Five years later that was replaced by a lath and plaster structure on the
current site. The existing church was
opened in 1878 and is dedicated to St James the Great of Compostela. I do get
confused with all the saints and tend always to think they are all Roman Catholic,
even after my three years of travel education in the United Kingdom, and while
I think of St James the Great of Compostela as very much being a Catholic
saint, this is indeed an Anglican church.
We ventured in and had a poke about, and were duly charmed, but even
more so outside by all the old graves and the names of the folk, so many of
whom have gone on to father (and mother) the settlors of the North.
We’d spent the previous night at the NZMCA Park near the Rainbow Falls
and walked down to the base of them to examine the duck weed and the ducks
enjoying that weed, and the swimmers, not so much. It is a lovely spot and I had then thought we
would walk down the river while staying there at the park, however we decided
after mooching about the Basin the next day that we would head out to Waimate
North and stay at the Bay of Islands Showgrounds, one of our favourite spots.
There between the exhibition buildings and under the fine old puriri
trees, we were met by dozens and dozens of feral rabbits, bold as brass, who claim
this park like area as their own domain. Apart from these cute little
(much-hated-by-farmers) critters, we were quite alone. We paid our fee in the
honesty box, but did not plug into power which the tariff had allowed for.
Chris was keen for us to spend this time away as a good test for the now
rectified electrical set up of the van.
The next day we headed back home but by a rather convoluted route, via
Ngawha to the east of Kaikohe where we checked out progress on the thermal
power station and the springs.
The Ngawha geothermal field covers an area of around twenty five square
kilometres, a fact (or statistic) that surprised me. The springs have been in
use for both therapeutic and pleasure and are made up apparently of sixteen separate
pools rich in ammonia, bicarbonate, boron and mercury, which is not typical of
other springs in New Zealand. The facilities are very basic but entry fee is
very modest, so one should not feel ripped off as can happen elsewhere; you are
more likely to simply feel dirty and stinky when you come away. Years ago I had
a client who suffered with a stubborn skin complaint and she used to drive up
from Whangarei to partake of the waters, or more correctly mud. If she called
on me on her way home, I was always appalled at the smell and discolouration;
perhaps she made little effort to wash after, hoping the residue would continue
the cure?
There has been an operational power station here since 1998, another
fact that surprised me, but it is the expansion we were particularly interested
in. In 2008, the station was expanded enabling it to produce 70% of Northland’s
electricity. I think I read somewhere recently that the current project should
cater for 100% of the region’s electricity needs, but don’t quote me there.
Great swathes of excavation and construction are within sight of the road; that
work begun in late 2017 and hoped to be completed by 2021.
Returning to the main road, emerging near the Kaikohe A&P
Showgrounds we saw the local Polocrosse Club was in action; we were glad we had
not decided to stay there the previous night, the extra horsey campers would
not have been as quiet as the rabbits.
We shopped for even more decadent pastries at the great little New World
in Kaikohe, gorged ourselves and then headed south down Highway 15 as far as
Pakotai then turned off and headed through to Tangowahine via the forest . I
remarked to Chris that I had enjoyed this latter part of the route more on a
northern direction rather than the southerly we were taking that day. He
suggested it could have been because of the dry countryside; perhaps there was
merit in that. The countryside is apparently on the brink of an official
drought.
Emerging onto Highway 14, that between Dargaville and Whangarei, we
headed for home, and back to our more anchored lifestyle.
