Pink & White.... Beaches

Catch-up

From Tapotupotu Bay at the top of the North Island there's only one direction you can travel and that's south, back down Aupouri Peninsula towards Kaitaia, 110km away.

Ngataki Stream, Rarawa Beach DOC Camp

When we headed up the peninsula we'd decided to travel to the top and then do any exploring on our way back down. Unfortunately (for me who likes to explore to the end of every road we come across) we decided not to check out the DOC Camp at Spirits Bay (16km of gravel) or the vast Parengarenga Harbour. David wasn't feeling the best (harbinger of things to come perhaps?) and it was hot & dusty everywhere we went. We'll just have to leave those places for another time. 

Ngataki Stream

We were also aware that we needed to be set up somewhere ready for the Christmas & New Year influx of holidaymakers (yes I know, Christmas, I'm that far behind!)

The New Zealand Christmas Tree- Pohutukawa flower

Our next stop was 60km south, on the east side of the peninsula at the Rarawa Beach DOC camp. The camp is a large site tucked in behind the sand dunes. There are several areas sectioned off by large pohutukawa trees, pines and native plantings. Many of the pohutukawa trees were in full bloom which made for a spectacular display.

The languidly flowing Ngataki Stream forms the southern boundary of the camp as it wends its way in a big lazy curve around the outside edge of the camp. With only 2-3 campers, we had the pick of sites. 

We parked on a slight rise atop the stream bank, with our slide-out overlooking the water where we could watch the bird life from behind our tinted windows. There was a small colony of Pied Shags/Kawau nesting in the overhanging pohutukawa trees alongside us, some of the chicks had already fledged, the ones still there spent the day exploring the branches around their nests.  

An adult (top right) took some time out resting on a branch right in front of our window. A pheasant pair (top left) cautiously came out of the flax bushes each morning to feed on the grass. A male Yellowhammer watched proceedings from a nearby fence post.

Rarawa is a beautiful camp and is now firmly one of my favourite DOC camps in the North Island. The sunsets were stunning and even better I didn't have to move far from the van to catch them...

... or the beautiful golden hour hue on the flowering pohutukawa trees.

But wait there's more! It wasn't just the camp that received my favourite award, Rarawa Beach has to be right up there alongside Puheke (or just ahead by a whisker) as the most spectacular beach we've seen up north.

From the camp located behind the pine trees (below), it's just a short walk along a soft, sandy track  beside the stream...

...to the beach. The colour of the sand on the track and the stream bed prepares you for what's in store once you are over the sand dunes and onto the beach.

A stunningly beautiful, glaringly white, silica sand beach (and don't forget your sunglasses).

The beautiful white sand beach (that squeaks as you walk) stretches for miles in a northerly direction...

...and down to a small sandspit at the south end where the stream exits into the sea.

As is the case with many of the sandspits along our coastline, it's been roped off and signposted to warn of nesting shorebirds, in particular our endangered endemic New Zealand Dotterel/tuturiwhatu. 

Of course the birds can't read and don't know when humans are trying to do them a good turn. We're alerted to several nests outside the large roped off area when we spot a Variable Oystercatcher/Torea Pango doing the broken wing act to draw us away from it's nest.

And then a dotterel darts past us doing a mad dash for who knows where, but keen for us to follow.

That's when we stand very still, and then gradually step our way after it, as it leads us towards the water. We look ahead carefully before each footfall, making sure there isn't an egg waiting to be crushed by a careless step. David is our egg spotter extraordinaire and as he scans the surrounding sand he spots a lone egg in a shallow depression in the middle of a small piece of dune grass (centre left).

At least the grass offers a tiny bit of protection, many nests are just open scrapes of sand with perhaps a bit of seaweed or small piece of driftwood nearby. Looking just like any other bit of sandy beach. Which works well for camouflage against natural predators but it's no protection at all from humans, dogs & vehicles that pass.

We didn't try to locate the oystercatchers nest, it ran down to the high tide mark and settled in some seaweed. It's trying to trick us into thinking it's nest is down there.

Rather than disturb any other birds nesting outside the ropes we move to the high tide line and follow it down to the stream outlet where once again there are huge pohutukawa trees overhanging the water.  One is smothered in red and the others just about to burst into flower. 

December is a great time to visit the beaches of the top half of the North Island, nothing speaks of summer more than a stunning display of our iconic pohutukawa trees.

We walk back along the waterline and see that a group of young guys have come down to the beach from the camp.

Some are swimming while others are sunbathing on the side of the sand dunes. Most of them are lily-white and I wonder if they know anything about how harsh our sun is and how much more they can burn when the sun is reflected off such white sand. I think there will be several sore bodies about tomorrow.

As we near the track entrance another dotterel darts away from us just ahead and David quickly locates another nest, this one beside a strand of seaweed and very vulnerable as it's right in the middle of the beach with wheel-tracks very near and footprints all around. Dotterels usually have 2 or 3 eggs so the ones we've seen are still works in progress.

We decide to drag two pieces of driftwood (they are quite small, there's nothing much available) and place them a couple of metres away from the nest on either side. This will at least stop a quad bike from tearing through the middle of the nest (which is on the far side of the wood in the photo below).

We then give it a wide berth and watch as the dotterel quickly returns and settles back down. In this blistering heat it's important the egg is shaded and the temperature kept regulated. I have my doubts that this nest would have survived until hatching.

You're probably wondering about the heading for this blog- Pink & White....Beaches. For those that don't know, that's a play on our famous Pink & White Terraces (considered to be the 8th wonder of the world), coloured terraces formed by silica deposits in a our famous geothermal area in and around Rotorua. The Terraces were destroyed in the 1886 Mt Tarawera eruption.

Well, you've seen the white beach but where is the pink one?

Just 12kms south by road but only just around the headland at the southern end of Rarawa Beach is another stunning beach; Henderson Bay.

It's hard to believe that these two beaches are side by side and yet are so different. Henderson Bay has a beautiful pink hue to it, the colour showing more on the wetter sand below the high tide line. I've caught it mid-tide here.

It's not until you get down close to the sand that you can see the pink is made up by heavier grains of sand that are sitting on top of the white silica sand beneath. The pink sand is crushed coral, although I have no idea where it's come from as I'm sure we don't have any coral nearby (and googling it doesn't provide any answers either). It's certainly a freak of nature that there are two beaches right next door to each other with different coloured sand.

While I was taking photos down on the beach, I spotted a person off in the distance through my viewfinder. He was laying face down in the sand, I wondered if he was getting up close & personal with a pink grain of sand (click on the photo to enlarge). And then I saw him raise himself up, he was doing press-ups. Sometimes I see the strangest things while out exploring. With no other car in the carpark I have no idea where he came from either. 

Henderson Bay is a true hidden gem, not too many people visit it. In fact both beaches wouldn't have too many visitors as most people are on day tours with trips to the Te Paki Giant Dunes & Cape Reinga. Both beaches are just a few kilometres off the main highway and are well worth a visit if you have your own transport.

Obviously the beach does get some unwanted attention though, this signpost alongside the track down to the beach.

The sun sets on Rarawa Beach. Next stop Houhora Heads.

Journey To The Top

Catch-up

We left Tokerau and the beautiful Karikari Peninsula heading north once again, north on our way to the very tip of the North Island. I'm sure every Kiwi has a pilgrimage to Cape Reinga on their 'must do once in a lifetime' bucket list. I know it's certainly on many overseas visitor's list going by the amount of tour buses, rental cars and campers we pass on the road.

The trip to the top for most people usually involves travelling part of the journey along 90 Mile Beach (which, despite the name, is only 55 miles long) but of course with the 5th-wheeler on the back this wasn't going to be an option for us. Although having experienced the beach and the access points later in our visit, we decided we could quite easily take the rig along the sand. We had a quiet chuckle imagining the looks on people's faces as we sailed by (literally if it was high tide!). 

We'd decided to drive to the top, stay in the DOC campground near Cape Reinga for a few days and then explore more slowly on our way back down the 100km long Aupouri Peninsula-the finger of land that forms the top of the North Island.

Of course this didn't mean we weren't able to stop along the way so I could add a few more church photos to my collection; the first one just outside Kaitaia; St Josephs Anglican Maori Church built in 1887.

The Seven Day Adventist Church at Te Kao has seen better days but I've included it here because I wanted to tell you a funny story about taking this photo. Well it is funny now, but at the time it wasn't, it was the most scariest thing I've experience on this journey of ours.

David had pulled up just off the road edge in front of a couple of rural houses. The church was on the other side of the road so I got out, crossed the road and took a few photos and then made my way back over the road and behind the rig to walk up to the front and my passenger door. As I walked around the back of the van this large barking, snarling, teeth bared mongrel of a dog burst out the open gate of one of the houses, charging straight for me.

I have never moved so fast in all my life, I took off down the side of the rig yelling for all I was worth and hoping David would see or hear me and do something, though I'm not sure what. As I reached my door I yanked it open but I was travelling too fast to leap inside so I kept running, pulling the door wide open and jumping behind it. I then shoved the door back & forward a few times like a shield, shouting and screaming at the dog.

By now a guy had also come charging out his gate shouting at the dog (which took not one bit of notice). David's looking at me through the gap in the door like, 'what the hell are you doing, crazy woman?', not having seen or heard anything until I wrenched the door open. Thank God the dog must have thought where did she go and stopped in his tracks and started sniffing around the rear tyre of the ute and then disappeared behind the ute and out onto the road. I leap into the ute and slammed the door and David quickly pulled out. I didn't look back but I can tell you the heart & adrenaline were pumping for many miles afterwards. Now instead of David calling out watch for traffic when I get out to take photos, he's taken to saying check for dogs too!

We stopped again just a couple of miles up the road when I saw one of my 'must have' churches ahead of us, the distinctive Ratana church at Te Kao. I've had this church on my list for a very long time and it was great to actually see it in the flesh. And this time I had a good look around before I opened the door.

Further on we had another exciting but much tamer encounter, an emu! An emu just walking along the fence line through a scrubby paddock beside the highway. Emu farming was a new enterprise back in the 1990s but difficulties in getting the birds slaughtered soon caused a decline in the industry. During that time some birds had escaped their fenced enclosures, others were kept as domestic pets and it has also been rumoured that some farmers released their birds to roam wild.

Sightings of random emus has been reported in many areas around Northland & the Far North and in fact this was my 3rd sighting of a bird. I'd seen one near Kawakawa and another near Tauranga Bay and although they didn't look fenced in, I couldn't be sure as it was a fleeting glance as we drove past. This one though was the closest I'd seen and in an area where it could wander at large so it definitely wasn't a captive bird.

As we drew closer to the top of  peninsula, the landscape opened up; big skies, rolling farmland intermingled with swathes of native scrub and bush, dune lakes, wetland swamps and out on the edges huge golden sand dunes. 

Five kilometres before we reach the top we turned right down a narrow dusty gravel road...

....that drops down through the manuka scrub into Tapotupotu Bay and the DOC campsite we'll be staying at for the next few days.

At the bottom we're greeted by small sandy bay and a lovely golden sand beach tucked in between two headlands...

...and two camping areas- I call them corrals- one for campervans and the other for tents.

I can understand the tent corral, this DOC Camp is on the 48km Te Paki Coastal Walk and at the start of the 3000km Te Araroa Trail so tenters need some space of their own...

...but I have no idea why the powers that be would want to corral all the campervans & motorhomes together because...

...carry on around the corner and there is a huge amount of open space to camp, right on the edge of the estuary.

Which is where we set up...

...and two or three other clever clogs! I thought it was Kiwis that followed along like sheep. In fact I think it's because foreign tourists are sometimes unsure of what to do and where to go and don't want to do anything wrong so follow the leader.

There was plenty to see parked on the side of the estuary, the tide range was so great we were able to watch the lagoon fill and empty with each tide, bird watch out the back window and watch boaties come and go...

...including this group of guys who had a lot of fishing gear set up on their jet skis. In fact they were doing some filming for a TV programme one guy told David as his drone whizzed about around the estuary.

We saw them later in the afternoon when we visit Cape Reinga, far out at sea. We watched them skirt around the outside of the islands off Cape van Diemen and then pass around Cape Reinga as they headed back to Tapotupotu Bay, again way out so as to miss the turbulent waters below us where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. You can see to tiny splashes of white, centre right in the first photo, they were just tiny dots and we would have missed them had we not known they were out there.

The camp, estuary, stream and mangrove margins were ideal for bird watching- here are a few of the usual suspects; clockwise- A Eurasian Skylark, an epic struggle between a male Sparrow & a Grasshopper, not a bird but just about as big, a Giant Bush Dragonfly, a female Ring-necked Pheasant, a Black Shag and a Welcome Swallow.

This rather plain but dainty little lily was flowering along the edges of the tracks, and through all the thick grasses, it's not a native and I've not seen it before. 

I was up early every morning to search out two specific and very secretive birds. The sunrises weren't quite as spectacular as I had been capturing but still lovely as the suited the subdued surroundings.

I had managed to spot two Banded Rail/Mioweka from the kitchen window, they were across a wide expanse of exposed sand feeding amongst the mangrove air roots along the edge of the stream that fed out to sea at low tide.

They were very quick to disappear into the mangroves and tussock behind at the slightest movement from our side of the estuary though.

Click photo to enlarge- two Banded Rail centre

I did manage to sneak up on them once but only took a fleeting photo as one of them flashed past. I didn't mind though. After my very first sighting and taking a couple of good photos at Whangaparoa's Shakespear Park, then another sighting at Sandspit, this was my third sighting up north so I was just pleased to see them once again.

I knew there were Fernbirds/Matata about when I heard their distinctive clicking calls as I was walking along the boardwalk and over the bridge near our campsite. 

Often heard but rarely seen, Fernbirds aren't quite as shy as the Banded Rail but they are just about as impossible to find because they move fast, skulking through the dense vegetation at ground level and seldom poking their head out of the greenery. 

'You looking for me?'

But they are nosy and if you sit quietly in the middle of their territory watching for the slightest of movements in the reeds or thick scrub around you they'll often poke their head out or jump on to an open branch nearby to check you out. But as quick as a flash they'll be gone again. 

If they have a mate nearby or feel threatened they can also call briefly from the top of a nearby bush, but they'll disappear just as quickly to appear again not much further on, atop the next bush. 

We explored along the boardwalk and track (part of the Te Paki Coastal Walk) up into the bush over the hill on the other side of the estuary a short distance...

...and then along a 4WD track that followed the Tapotupotu Stream deeper into the valley behind the camp. It would be great kayaking quietly up this backwater, we flushed a number of different birds but the dense undergrowth made it hard to spot them.

Each day, as the tide went out I also watched from the window a pair of beautiful steely grey Reef Herons/Matuku Moana stalking prey along the receding waterline. They were very wary too and I only got a little closer to them by putting a bush between them and me and then quietly sneaking up on them using the bush as cover.

Looking like stealth bombers, with wings flattened out to keep their profile low and to help them see fish in the shadow, they carefully paced up and down the water's edge...

...until they spotted a hapless fish which, with lightening fast speed, they caught and swallowed.

Even though I suspect the reef herons were a pair, one of them did not like the other to be within sight and they both did not like the local White-faced Heron/Matuku feeding or flying by either. The dominant Reef Heron spent a lot of his time chasing the other one away and they both chased any nearby gulls and the White-faced Heron away. He just flew up to his favourite tree stump and laughed at them.