Tawharanui and Mahurangi

Saturday 18 February
We set off quite early, stopping for a look round the Warkworth Museum which is larger than many of these local museums and rather fun, with an exceptionally  large collection of ladies underwear from the nineteenth century! There’s also a lovely kauri reserve next door with a couple of really big 1000 year old trees, so we wander through trying to memorise the names for the local trees. We have lunch and make our way over to the Tawharanui peninsula. Though a fair way north of Auckland it’s one of the Auckland Regional Parks and we pick up the relevant leaflets at the local i-site. The peninsula has a giant rodent-proof fence across its entrance, as it’s a kiwi reserve and they’re trying to keep it rodent free. We drive through the automatic gates to the end of the road, park at Anchor Bay and set off for a circular walk, passing a couple of fabulous bays, taking in the far point and returning along a stream through lovely cool native bush. We see and hear more bell birds than we ever have before, and the sounds as you walk through the bush are tropical and exotic.  It’s a glorious Summer’s day and we end by swimming in the bay. Fabulous clear water, quite a few surfers around, but waves not too big to swim. A perfect day out. We drive back to Snell’s Beach where we’re booked into a very cheap b&b for the night. The place hasn’t been renovated in about 40 years but the owners Roland and Alison are good value and full of local information.

Anchor Bay, Tawharanui

Looking across to Kawau Island

Sunday 19 February
We breakfast with them and other guests out in the garden next morning and watch the next-door neighbour raise the union jack in our honour. Alison shouts out the nationality of her guests every morning and the appropriate flag is raised apparently. This morning we’re off to the Mahurangi peninsular. We park at Scott’s Point and, as its low tide, we walk around a tiny island which has weird stone formations.

Scotts Point

Weird rock formation at Scotts Point with Mahurangi Harbour behind

The Mahurangi Harbour is very pretty with lots of inlets, islands, little boats, kayaks and so on. Makes us wish we were more boating types to have the freedom to sail around this lovely coastline. Setting off back south again we stop for lunch in a lovely old pub at Puhoi, the Bohemian town. It was settled in 1840 by a group of people from Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia) and today they still strive to keep their culture alive. It’s a town, like so many in New Zealand, that began life through European settlers being given land for free, which they then had to clear, floating massive tree trunks down river to sell. Within 20 years they’d built a church and a school, had a post office and a store. They must have been very tough, determined people, one can’t help but be impressed reading about their history in the local museum.

Mike paddling in the Puhoi River at Waiwera Beach

 

Still making our way south we stop next at Waiwera which is where the Puhoi river enters the sea. It has a lovely beach but is fairly shallow so we swim just where the river meets the sea to get a bit more depth. Wonderful warm water but strange because the tide’s coming in and there’s a strong current pushing you upstream. Across the river is the Wenderholm regional park, Auckland’s first park, which we’ll have to visit another time. Chicken Laksa for dinner back home in our favourite Malaysian restaurant. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a Malaysian restaurant in Oxford, or London for that matter, I wonder why, the food is terrific.

Rotorua w/e

Saturday 4 February
We set off down south at 8am and its about a 4 hour drive. We’re staying at the Kuirau Lodge which is about a 10 minute walk to the centre of town across a geo-thermal area. Immediately we notice the sulphur smell and as we approach our Lodge we see steam coming out of the drains down the street: strange land indeed. Our accommodation is really large and pleasant with a sitting area and kitchen as well as ensuite. Out the back there’s a swimming pool that’s geo-thermally heated, just like a warm bath, and we make full use of it during our stay. We pop into town and look round the market, then decide to head for Wai-o-Tapu. It’s about 20km further south and covers quite a large area, with walking paths laid out so you can’t wander off into the hot spots. There are bubbling mud pools and steam coming out of cracks in the earth everywhere we look. There’s an emerald green lake and a bright lime green lake but best of all is the Champagne Pool which is large, very deep and boiling hot with tiny bubbles rising to its surface. At its periphery the various chemicals in the water are deposited in layers: white, orange and green. 

It really is lime green

At the edge of Champagne Pool

On the way back we go to Kerosene Creek, recommended by Liz our next door neighbour. It’s a hot stream in the wild where a swimming spot has been formed at the base of a waterfall. We don our togs and go in: I avert my eyes as a naked German gets out, struggling into his cozzie to avoid embarrassment. It’s pretty hot and lovely but not quite deep enough to swim. A beautiful Maori boy sits on a branch awaiting the space to jump in.

Swimming at Kerosene Creek

Back in Rotorua we venture into the town to eat. We can’t find any of the restaurants recommended in the Rough Guide and it’s at this point that I feel seriously nostalgic about those lovely old European towns which have cute bars and great eating places round every corner. We end up eating in a pseudo Italian place which advertised Thai green curry pizzas (!) and had the most enormous disgusting looking gateaux that I’ve ever seen in my life, and as you know I'm usually quite fond of cake.

Sunday 5 February

Next morning we decide to canoe. I have a pretty poor record on canoeing as Max will confirm, but nearby Lake Tarawera hires them out and this seems a good opportunity for me to redeem myself. When we get there it’s a bit colder than we imagined and the place isn’t open yet so we backtrack up the hill to look around the buried village. Back in 1866 Mt Tarawera erupted and showered ash and mud over a vast area. The little museum tells us all about the fabulous pink and white terraces, the 8^th wonder of the world, which attracted thousands of visitors to the area back in Victorian days, and how they were destroyed in the eruption which also killed 120 people and buried villages. Interesting stuff, but the buried village was a disappointment and we were freezing cold.

Change of plan and we’re off to Waimangu Volcanic Valley to do a boat trip round Lake Rotomahana. You can walk round the valley too but we’re too late in the day to cover it all. A rickety old bus takes us down to the jetty and off we go. Boat journeys are always pleasant and this one took us around the circumference of the lake showing us all the various geo-thermal sites: geysers, steaming cliffs, under-water craters etc.  In the evening we head for ‘Eat Street’ as it’s called and end up in a Thai restaurant. Mike’s happy as we find a bar selling real ale.

Steaming cliffs at the edge of Lake Rotomahana

Monday 6 February

We go to the nearest Maori village, Whakarewarewa, which is having a special celebration as it’s Waitangi Day, a public holiday to commemorate the treaty between Maori and settlers. We are guided by a Maori woman who gave us a good introduction and led us round the village. About 25 people still live here but it’s very crowded today because of the holiday, and there’s a real feeling of community celebration. We see how the ‘hangi’ is cooked and where the communal baths are. There are boiling hot pools and steam holes all over the place. The earth’s crust is really thin here: it sounds hollow when you jump up and down which is rather disconcerting, as is the heat you can feel under your feet. Mike is keen to talk to an old man who is the grandson of one the Maori guides from Victorian times. She was called Maggie and went to Oxford and is buried in Oddington on Otmoor. We’ve seen her memorial there, and so ended up chatting to the old fellow, hearing his rather sad life story. He doesn’t look remotely Maori and obviously has a rather odd relationship with the local Maoris here, but intends to live out the rest of his days here. Driving home takes ages because we hit the traffic coming back from the Coromandel peninsular.

Whakarewarewa living village

Raglan w/e

Saturday 29 January
We drive up to Muriwai Beach which is north west, above the Waitakere Hills. There’s a large gannet colony at the southern end of this famous surfing beach and although it’s January and quite late in the season we’re hoping the baby birds haven’t flown the nest. In fact you can smell the colony before you can see it, and although you can’t get really close, because the birds are perched on ledges below you, the mottled younger birds are still there along with the small fluffy white balls of the more recently hatched. They are fabulous flyers and it makes quite a spectacle.  We then drive up to the northern end of the beach, park at the end of the road, and start walking further north along the beach. The tide is pretty high and we’re not sure if it’s coming up or going down (should have learnt by now to check before setting out!) so we take the safe route and cut into the dunes backing the beach, on a path running parallel to the edge of the sea. For the first time we’re walking barefoot on the black/purple sand. I love dune areas like this; they always give me a feeling of other-worldliness. It’s a strange and precarious environment but at the same time of course reminds me of being over St Ouen’s dunes back home in Jersey .

Gannet colony at Muriwai

It’s quite hard going struggling through deep sand, but certainly easier barefoot so long as you don’t tread on any prickly grass. We stop and picnic with our backs to a large warm dune , then continue hoping to find a way back through to the beach so we can return a different way. Eventually we climb up and over dunes to the beach but find the tide just as high as before, so we end up walking along a narrow gap between the wall of sand dune and the sea. It's quite tricky and, bearing in mind how rough and unpredictable the sea is here, we occasionally have to run up and out of the way of approaching waves to avoid getting drenched.

Cutting through the dunes at Muriwai

Sunday 30 January
We set off pretty early heading south for Hamilton. We’ve got 2 nights’ accommodation in the surfing town of Raglan which is on the coast west of Hamilton. On the way down we decide to visit the famous Waitomo glow worm caves south of the city. More rolling green hills and lots of cattle on the way. We stop for lunch in a cafe in PIrongia near the high PIrongia Hills. New Zealand does really good cafes, and this is one of the best, serving lots of home-made cakes (predominantly carrot which is my favourite) and snacks (corn stacks, eggs benedict etc) along with really good coffee.

The caves are pretty impressive and we’re shown around by a Maori boy whose ancestor first found the caves back in the 1800s. It’s very orderly with good steps and tiled flooring, the usual impressive stalagtites and mites, but when you get quite far down you go into a little boat in the darkness which is pulled across an underground lake by the Maori lad, and up above you are thousands upon thousands of tiny green lights shining for all they’re worth. The glow worms are actually the larvae of moths and the light is to attract insects. Really quite magical. Back in the light and we drive onto Raglan. We have a little self-contained unit, converted  garage we think, with kettle, fridge, microwave and en suite. It’s a pleasant walk along the river into town where we have a drink in the Harbour View listening to the locals making music on the verandah, then eat across the road.

Monday 31 January
Today we plan to walk up the nearest mountain, the Karoi. It’s nearly 1000m high and is pretty steep uphill all the way. It becomes apparent that it has a number of peaks and our walk takes us up one of the ridges to get to the highest. I’m not that keen on ridge walks but this one is different.  It has thick vegetation both sides so there’s no sense of vertigo at all even though you’re walking along a rocky ridge with really steep slopes both sides. The biggest problem is the mud. Although it’s a lovely hot sunny day, the path on some of the ridge sections is very wet and muddy. I think the top’s in cloud quite a lot of the time, so it doesn’t get a chance to dry out. We soon encounter a ladder section which is fine, and then the first of two sections where there is over-hanging rock and you have to pull yourself up on chains. It’s very hard work, and requires a lot of strenuous climbing. The worst of it is that the chains are wet and muddy so you don’t feel you have a good grip on them, but we manage OK, and I’m actually quite proud of myself. The top still seems a long way away and the mud’s getting no better so in the end we have to call it a day and head back. Going back down is actually more scary than the climb up as we have really tired legs and have to tread very carefully.

Mike on the way up with the ridge behind leading to the first peak

The first chain section, serious climbing

Back in Raglan, Mike reverses the car just a little bit too close to the house and the wretched tow bar goes through the plate glass of the French windows. What a bugger! So we end up trying to get in touch with the owner and then phoning the glaziers who luckily were able to come round straight away. And all we wanted to do was lie down and have a little siesta after one of the most challenging walks we’ve ever done. Out later to eat at the Orca restaurant which has wonderful food and great service as well as beautiful views across the estuary towards the sea. It’s a beautiful evening and there are loads of lads jumping off the bridge into the river, and our troubles with the door are virtually forgotten. Gaynor, the young South African owner/doctor calls in later. She’s very understanding and nice about it all.

Looking out to sea from the restaurant in Raglan

We’re off early in the morning as Mike’s working in Hamilton for the day, and I while away the hours visiting the rather splendid Botanical Gardens and the less than inspiring museum.