Hob Nail Boots & Fish For Dinner

This morning we were woken at the crack of dawn by the clean-up crew; a whole load of starlings wearing hob nail boots having a breakfast banquet on the roof two feet above our heads. I think they were feasting on the bugs & moths that were stuck to the nose of the fifth-wheeler. Whatever they were doing they were enjoying it & they were quite happy to let every other starling within a five mile radius know that there was a free breakfast at Rays as well!

Luckily we needed to be up & ready to watch the America's Cup anyway. And what a couple of races; despair at the loss & nail biting tension & screams of encouragement at the win. It felt kind of strange watching the America's Cup parked up in the middle of nowhere with the sea just out the door.

Once we got the racing out of the way I packed up lunch & we took a drive up the coast towards Clevedon to check out a couple of the Auckland Regional Parks. There are over 25 parks around the greater Auckland area & they are in some beautiful locations. Camping is allowed at a small fee & you can buy a pass that allows you to use any of them at most times of the year. I doubt very much whether a lot of Aucklanders realise that they have these wonderful facilities right on their door step.

Unfortunately with me not being able to walk too far at the moment we couldn't do any of the dozens of walks available but we had a little wander around the Ashby Homestead in Tapapakanga Park. James Ashby and his wife Rebecca settled on the land in 1899 & built the homestead beside the beach in 1900. They raised 14 children on the property, which remained in family ownership until 1990. The only way into the farm was by boat or horseback (no wonder there were 14 children, & poor Rebecca died at age 61, worn out no doubt, her husband at 88) The front room of the homestead was both a school room & the church.

Ashby Homestead

But what a beautiful view from the house up & down the coastline & across the water to the Coromandel Peninsula.

From the beach with a huge pohutukawa beside the house.

We carried onto Orere Point and had lunch near the water, it felt like summer it was such a lovely warm day. On the way home we did a bit of bird spotting & managed to see more non-natives than natives; a hawk stalking a turkey (who we think had chicks), a bald Eastern Rosella & two beautiful ring neck doves. All a little too far away to get any decent shots but still lovely to see.

Back home a few more vans & buses had arrived for the evening & David wandered down the beach to check on a guy putting a Seahorse kontiki out. After watching the guy bait it up and send it on it's way 3 kms out into the Firth of Thames he was invited back in half an hour to see what was pulled in. And pulled in were 9 good sized snapper, 2 of which were nicely filleted & handed over to David for our dinner! David & his charm wins again, maybe we don't need that dinghy after all! :) 

We're on the Road Again

Today we left Tauranga bound for Rays Rest, the freedom camping site at Miranda which we visited back in March before we toured the Coromandel. We’re heading through to the Auckland Showgrounds at Greenlane on Thursday to help out at the Covi Motorhome & Caravan Show & also have a look for a few items we need to complete our “home” before we hit the road fulltime, an inflatable boat is a priority.  And then after the show we are heading north to Whangarei to say our goodbyes to family before we leave for the South Island mid October.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks frantically packing up the house in readiness for the movers who are booked to shift our gear into storage four days after we get back to Tauranga. We’ll sleep in the fifth-wheeler in our drive when we get home so I can give the house the once over before settlement. It still feels a little strange but from now on in this is our full-time home & I’d have to say that inside it’s packed to the gunwales! There is still a bit of gear to add; a nice little pile in the garage is awaiting our return, most importantly the golf clubs & fishing gear, but we have the space for those sorted. I’ll do a blog soon on a couple of things we have added to the ute & fifth-wheeler which will make life a little easier & safer.

Of course we couldn’t leave until after the America’s Cup racing finished but with the 2^nd race cancelled we were able to get away just after lunch. Lunch being the time not the food.  It was a fairly easy run through to Miranda although we had to stop at Katikati for groceries as I had run out of time to do any shopping during the week. And you know how it is when you’re hungry, a few necessary items turned into a trolley load! Then of course I had to fit everything in the already bulging cupboards & fridge. So my orderly packing which I was very proud of then became a free for all. Things shoved in here & there, wherever I thought they’d be safe, or not as the case may be; the cupboard door burst open at some stage during the trip empting a number of bottles of wine onto the floor to roll around unimpeded & then it conveniently shut itself to stop any further escapees. Thankfully none broke; it was my favourite Chardonnay.

A little further on as we entered the Karangahake Gorge we decided we were in fact now hungry & that we’d pull into the first sizeable rest area for a bite to eat. Just as we finished the discussion a rest area appeared & with lighting quick reactions David zoomed in to a quick halt. Hmmm……not something he’d be wanting to do too often, I think he forgot we had our 9 metre rolling home attached. We had another  laugh when we went to leave, while we have enough room to move down the fifth-wheeler when the side is in, I usually push it out a couple of feet  in a situation like this just to give me room to open the fridge & prepare lunch. We had a quick lunch & I climbed back in the ute ready to go. That was until David appeared at the window asking if I had forgotten something. The slide out was still out! Now that would have been fun, passing through the narrow gorge with the slide out over the centre line! Not that that would ever happen, as soon as David looked in his rear vision mirror it would have been very obvious. Thankfully.

We decided it does take a bit of time to get back into our “on the road” routines.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, we arrived in good time & secured a level spot at the northern end of Rays Rest although it is closer to the road noise but then there are only half a dozen vehicles passing in the night. We drove down to the bird hide for a quick look but the tide was on its way out & the birds a fair way away. There are still a good number of birds that winter over here at Miranda but the numbers are set to increase shortly as the godwits return from their non-stop epic journey from the other side of the world where they have been breeding.

Godwits, Oystercatchers, Red Knots, Terns & Gulls arrive to feed on the mudflats

Once back at the fifth-wheeler & with the temperature dropping we were both keen to see if our new diesel heater delivered the goods, it worked brilliantly and we were lovely & cosy all evening. There was no smell, no noise, other than the initial start-up, & it switched itself off & on when required. This is great news for us, we now know we have enough heat power for those cold South Island winter nights.

Rays Rest, Miranda

Not all camp sites.....

…. have a fabulous outlook. Some are there purely for practical reasons.

Danby Park is located right in the centre of Thames, on the main road heading to the Coromandel Peninsula and is a very recent addition to areas where you can park overnight in the district. I thought it might have been quite noisy being on a main road but it wasn’t too bad, David was a little more unsettled as there were people passing through the area on foot until quite late.  It did feel rather strange though setting up “camp” in the middle of a public carpark. The Coromandel has a very strict no Freedom Camping policy with an instant $200 fine should you wish to ignore the rules. It looks like the locals have another way of dealing with it.

We’ve heard various stories of wardens tapping on the window at 5am waving a piece of paper or of people been asked to move on when they’ve only stopped to do some fishing or eat their dinner. Sadly once again the minority have spoilt it for the majority.

Thames District Council has made Danby Park available for self-contained vehicles with a minimum 2 night stay. Even though there is no charge & the local camping grounds may complain, this must benefit the local economy. Take us for example; had the park not been available we would not have stopped overnight, yes we would have purchased groceries & fuelled up on our way through but having stayed overnight  we also visited a café, washed the ute, walked through town & made a few purchases from various shops adding money to the economy. Surely that’s a win-win situation. While some councils do see the wider picture others need to look at the benefits of doing the same. Motorhoming is a large & growing industry both with New Zealanders and overseas visitors alike.

Thames is the gateway to the Coromandel & a delightful town with lots of heritage & historic buildings, it was once a thriving gold mining boom town proving entertainment & supplies to the miners who came from the many gold mines located just out of town & in the hills & ranges of the Coromandel.

 

These Art Deco pubs look like they've come straight from Napier.

 

Now that we’re on the road I’m going to continue adding to my “New Zealand Country Churches” collection than I started  “collecting” a few years ago starting with this lovely church on the outskirts of Thames;  Te Tokoto Tapu (Holy Trinity Church) Parawai, built in 1886 by local Maori.

There were two more beautifully restored churches in town. A lot of my church photos have been picked up by the Historic Places Trust for use in their online register & they've also been used in Wikipedia. 

Here’s is the link to my Flickr set - NZ Country Churches

And if you'd like to view more photos from Thames they are here

Rays Rest

....is a very popular freedom camping spot on the Seabird Coast at Miranda.

Dawn at Rays Rest

Miranda is on the lower western side of the Firth of Thames and a very important place for migratory wading birds, in particular the Bar Tailed Godwit & Red Knot. They are attracted to the food found in the 8500 hectares of tidal mudflats.

There are also extensive shell banks along the coast that provide safe roosting spots at high tide & make it ideal for bird watching, which is why we have been here for the last two days. The shell banks or cheniers have formed over the past 4500 years and are a rare geological site themselves. Miranda is regarded as the finest example in the world of an active shell chenier plain. The shell ridges have been built off shore and each ridge has gradually been pushed  landward by tide & storm. Eventually the ridge is raised above the tide.

(To see the birds better click on the photos to enlarge them)

A new chenier is formed across the mudflats

In March tens of thousands of godwits gather on the mudflats to feed and prepare to migrate to their breeding grounds in Siberia & Alaska. The birds will fly over 12,000kms with just one refuelling stop in Asia to reach their breeding grounds in the arctic tundra. An amazing feat & the furthest flight of any migrating seabird. Come October they will be ready to do the return flight this time direct covering the distance in around 3 weeks.

Oystercatchers gather on the shell bank while godwits & rednots wait for the tide to rise before moving.

Along with the migrating birds over 43 other wader species have been recorded at Miranda with many wintering over including Wrybill, NZ Dotterel, Sandpiper, Pied Stilt, Oystercatcher. 



Godwits(the larger bird) & Redknots; ruddy colour breasts in both birds are their breeding plummage

High tide was just before sunset so the colours & light were amazing and the view through our spotting scope spectacular, sadly I don't own a $20,000 lens(like some of the fellow birders in the hide) that would have got me some awesome closeups!

Over on the salt ponds behind us Pied Stilts & Wrybills settled, Wrybills are endemic to NZ and unique in that it is the only species of bird in the world with a beak that is bent sideways (always to the right). There are only a few thousand wrybills left in NZ and over 40% of the population winter over at Miranda after breeding on the braided rivers of the South Island.

Pied Stilts(background) & Wrybills

If you would like to see more bird photos, here is the link to my Miranda Shorebird Flickr set.

Arriving home as the sky turned a beautiful crimson our van looks a little lonely without the ute.

Another great day 'Out There'