With the weather looking pretty dreadful everywhere in the North Island, we decided to backtrack south after our friends returned home to Auckland. We are hoping that East Cape will be the first area of the country to get sunshine after the “weather bomb” finally passes over.
Continue reading Mahia Peninsula
Tag: walk
Tolaga Bay Storm
Our friends John and Claude sent us a text to say they were camping at Tolaga Bay for a few days on their way back to Auckland, so we decided to join them. The woman at the campground warned us that a storm was on its way and that they were expecting gale force winds, but we had to stay somewhere so we booked in anyway.
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Toxic Lake Tutira
Although we visited Lake Tutira at the end of 2014, we decided to spend another night there and enjoy a paddle. We noticed signs on the way in warning about low water quality, but it wasn’t until we parked in a prime spot on the lake edge that we realised just how bad toxic algae can get in warm, still water.
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Hawke’s Bay Reunion
This weekend Felicity’s medical school class of 76 held its 40 year reunion in Napier, so we drove down in the motorhome to attend. We left home on Thursday at 3.00pm, and managed to get across the Bombay Hills, and out of the traffic, in just under an hour and a half.
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Powhiri in Whakatane
As Felicity has an event in Whakatane to attend on Monday, we decided to drive down on Friday and spend the weekend in the area. We were keen on a paddle in our kayaks, but the weather on Friday was looking a bit wild so we headed for Lake Okareka, just to the west of Lake Tarawera, in the hope that it would be relatively sheltered.
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Weekend at Taupiri Bay
Our friends Tannis and Mike have built a new house since we last visited them, so we were interested to see the changes. When we drove past a few months ago we looked up from the road and couldn’t see a thing, so the building blends into the landscape pretty effectively.
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Bay of Islands with the Brits
The English branch of the Potter family is visiting NZ this Christmas, so we took the opportunity to spend a couple of days with them in Kerikeri.
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Whakaipo Bay
This Labour Day holiday we were well-organised – I hadn’t unloaded the kayak gear from last weekend – so we escaped the city late morning on Friday, heading south. By the time we reached Otorahonga we were ready for lunch, so we stopped at the Haurua rest area. This is the start of the King Country, and there is a memorial stone marking the spot where the first Māori king met with the Ngāti Maniapoto chiefs in 1857 to get their support. Europeans could not enter this area for the next quarter of a century. Fortunately for us the locals tolerate pakeha tourists these days.
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Toretore Island
Felicity has a function to attend in Whangarei on Monday, so we decided to spend the weekend up north in the motorhome. As usual we didn’t have much of a plan when we left home, but as we neared Wellsford she rang our friends Lannes and Linda in the Bay of Islands, and received an invitation to park in their driveway overnight.
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Lake Rerewhakaatiu
After abandoning our plans to go away in the camper last week due to the horrible weather, we committed ourselves this weekend no matter what. I loaded the kayaks on Thursday so by late morning Friday we were ready to hit the road south, way before any motorway traffic to slow us down.
The only slight problem was that yet again we were short on cheese. A first-world problem to be sure, but needing to be rectified nonetheless. Continue reading Lake Rerewhakaatiu
Taheke Waterfall Track
The Department Of Conservation is currently re-building the Okura Walkway, and intend to use 30 metres of a product called Geoweb to hold a mixture of bark and gravel in place. A local group I belong to called Friends of Okura Bush is concerned that kauri and kahikatea roots will penetrate this plastic mesh, and will then be damaged by heavy foot traffic on this popular track.
We have previously seen a small section of Geoweb on the Keri Keri walkway, but when I was told that there has been quite a bit used on the Taheke Waterfall Track just north of Whangarei I decided to check it out.
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Kuranda
The skyrail trip from Cairns to Kuranda is one of the best attractions we have run across. The ride up in a gondola took almost an hour and a half, including a couple of stops along the way.
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Cassowary Coast
The area around Mission Beach is known as the Cassowary Coast, because it has one of the highest concentrations of this big bird in the country. You can’t drive more than a few hundred metres without seeing warning signs about them crossing highways. We were determined to see one.
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Mission Beach
The backpackers we are staying at is actually at Wongaling Beach, which is in between Mission Beach and South Mission Beach. Even though we were up bright and early this morning, it ended up being a bit of a rush to get to the Clump Point boat ramp, where a ridged-hull inflatable boat operated by Reefexpress was waiting to take us on another snorkelling expedition.
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Bingil Bay
From the deck of our backpacker’s hostel we could see the ocean through the trees, so the first thing we did this morning was to drive down to Bingil Bay and walk up and down the beach. There were signs warning about crocodiles, but I overheard a local saying that all the north Queensland beaches now have these signs so they are not particularly meaningful.
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Lake Eacham
Dunkly’s Place must be one of the most unimaginatively designed and badly situated motels we have ever stayed in – not surprisingly it is up for sale. It did provide everything we needed for the night, and there are lots of interesting things to do in the neighbourhood, so I shouldn’t complain.
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Mareeba
We left Port Douglas this morning and drove up to the Atherton Tablelands. After a bit over an hour’s driving we saw a sign pointing to the Mareeba Wetlands, and decided to take a look. While it is only about 30km inland from Cairns this area is over 400 metres higher, so the surroundings are much more like the rest of Australia than the steamy rain-forest on the coast.
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Daintree
They don’t call it rainforest for nothing – it has been wet every day of our Queensland trip so far. As I have been writing this post we have been forced to move further under a wide veranda to escape the deluge. With temperatures around 27 degrees this is not as bad as it sounds, and we have been enjoying our adventures so far.
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Kerikeri for Queen’s Birthday
When we saw there was fine weather forecast for the long weekend, we decided to head north in the campervan. Realising that others would have the same idea, we hit the road about 3.30pm, and as a consequence got a pretty clear run to Whangarei.
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Whananaki
Our plan for Anzac weekend really only extended as far as visiting Felicity’s cousin for dinner and spending the night outside his house near Parua Bay, just north of Whangarei. We were only a couple of kilometres away when there was a terrible vibration and smashing noise from the rear of the campervan, so I pulled over to the side of the road just opposite the yacht club. All the rubber tread on one tyre had de-laminated and was lying on the road about 20 metres behind us, so it was obvious we were going to be a bit later than expected.
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