Boating in the Bay of Islands

Catch-up (from way back when)

I bet that threw you. Bay of Islands? No we're still in the South Island (real time) but I decided the rest of the South Island catch-up blogs can wait. I'm now going to hopefully finish off the Far North & Northland blogs from, would you believe it, 18 months ago! I've had several requests from various people over the last few months asking when I was going to do them. I had afterall promised to finish them last winter! So here you are, lets see how the grey matter performs remembering it all.

Here's the link to the last blog from up north, we had stayed a few days before Christmas at the Wagener Holiday Park in Houhora and then returned to the NZMCA Tokerau Beach Park for Christmas & New Year (a very wet & damp holiday period). We then returned to Kerikeri in early January, 2019, left the rig on our friends Bruce & Barbaras' front lawn and headed to the Opua Marina to meet up with my sister, Gaelyn (Gae) & her husband David (yes another one) at their launch and spend three nights on the boat out in the bay. 

We're very familiar with Opua Marina, we sailed our boat up to the Bay of Islands from Tauranga and rented a berth at Opua for the summer a long time ago. While we spent most of our time out on the water we had a base to come back to when the weather packed up and/or we needed supplies.

Being the height of summer there were many luxury boats and super yachts anchored up between Paihia & Russell. I love the tender attached to this one, it's probably three times the size of our Takacat inflatable.

We rounded Tapeka Point...

...and met a steady stream of boats heading to and coming back from the islands, including the R. Tucker Thompson tall ship.

We motored into Honeymoon Bay (Hahangarua Bay) and headed towards a familiar launch, my sister's in-laws boat, we called out a hello and motored right on past, they were busy with other members of the family and, with what seemed, an awful lot of grandchildren. 

We carried on past several bays where many more boats were moored up. This one, Pipi Bay (Awaawaroa Bay), is a popular little cove & a favourite for New Years Eve parties.

We rafted up with friends in Indico Bay (Otiao Bay) and had a relaxing afternoon before we headed over to the mainland to pick Gae up from Parekura Bay on the Rawhiti to Russell Road.  She had driven up from Whangarei after finishing work late in the afternoon. 

As we passed the end of  Otehei Bay (Urupukapuka Island) I spied a very familiar boat; it was our old boat Quantum. After selling her in Tauranga, the last time we saw her was at Waikawa Marina in Picton and now here she was in the Bay of Islands. 

We had some fun times (and a few scary ones) exploring the coastline from the Bay of Plenty, in and around the Coromandel, through the Hauraki Gulf and right up to Whangaroa Harbour in the Far North. As much as we loved it on the water we wanted to explore the interior too, hence the reason (well one of the reasons) we moved from a boat to a 5th-wheeler. The transition was easy, we were used to living in a small space.

We collected Gae from the boat ramp at Parekura Bay and then made our way around into Assassination Cove, where they have a mooring, for the night. 

Unfortunately my David had missed out on most of the afternoon and much of the evening, he hadn't been feeling the best since leaving Opua and was downstairs on one of the beds.  

It was a glorious sunset as more boats motored in behind us and settled down for the night...

...as the golden hour turned into the blue hour and then the inky blackness of night fell across the quiet and calm bay. I say quiet, that was until friends rafted up and the food & drink started to flow. 

Poor David was still unwell and stayed in our cabin during the evening. He had a very restless night but felt a little better in the morning. The next morning my brother-in-law received a call from his parents boat, his mother was not well and his brother thought she needed to be taken to the medical centre. 

With all the grandkids and visitors on board their boat it was going to be easier for us to collect her and take her back to Russell to see the doctor.

We motored across to them, tied up and transferred a very pale and unsteady mother-in-law onto our boat and headed the 20 odd kilometres back into Russell. 

David had crashed again so we now had two patients on board, thankfully there was also nurse at hand if needed; Gae. And if things got desperate we could call on the local police Naiad RHIB boat which was moving about checking on the many holiday makers on the water.

One of the dozens of cruise ships that visit New Zealand over summer was berthed in the harbour between Russell & Paihia. Passengers were being transferred from the ship in tenders/liferafts to both towns.

Gae had called ahead to the medical centre and with no transport available an ambulance was sent to collect David's mother. It was waiting on the wharf when we arrived.

We also had to get permission to tie up (and stay) at the Russell wharf for an hour or so because security had it blocked off for the cruise ship tenders to offload passengers.

David & I stayed with the boat. And in fact David went back to bed, he still wasn't well and we should have made the decision then to call it a day and head back to Opua once the family were back on board. But he rallied a little and didn't want to put a damper on an already stressful day.

Once the others arrived back at the boat, David's mother re-hydrated and with the all clear from the Doctor, we headed back out to the islands once again.

Russell Waterfront

We dropped our patient back at her boat and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling on the boat in another bay.

There was another spectacular sunset which David missed as he was below deck once again. A nasty rash had also broken out on his lower back and he once again had a terrible night. Uh-oh...

The next morning the decision was made to head back into Opua, David was now very unwell and hadn't eaten for two days. It was time to get him to a doctor.

So much for a relaxing few days on the water....we headed off once again.

When we rounded Tapeka Point the small cruise ship from yesterday had been replaced with a monster one. 

We were dwarfed by the ship as we passed behind it.

The marina was very busy but we managed to offload at the casual berth. We sent Gae & David on their way, the third time in three days that the boat headed back out to the islands. 

David, looking deathly white, waited patiently with the gear while I walked to the carpark to get the ute. I loaded it up and we drove off back to Kerikeri and straight to the medical centre. And that was how we found ourselves staying on our friends front lawn for the next three weeks; David had shingles. And had a very bad reaction to them, we even had to make a trip to the Kawakawa Hospital at one stage because they thought he might have had meningitis.

And I might add here too that he had been to his doctor back in Tauranga to get the shingles vaccine and they had run out, he next went to a chemist at one of our stops and they too had run out so it wasn't for lack of trying that he missed out on it. All I can say (having had shingles too, 9 years ago) you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy and I would highly recommend you get the vaccine if you're entitled to it.

We are forever grateful to Bruce & Barbara who gave us the space we needed but looked out for us each day too. And we would have been lost without a power supply on what turned out to be three weeks of glorious summer sun with temperatures in the late thirties every day. The air conditioning in the fifth-wheeler certainly earnt its keep that summer.

Leaving David to rest, I took myself on a few tiki-tours around the local area and enjoyed stalking several Californian Quail families and their bumble-bee sized chicks who passed through the garden each day.

An Eclectic Mix- Wellington

Real-time

Pauatahanui Boat Sheds

From Mangatainoka we headed west over the Tararua Range via the Pahiatua Track, into the Manawatu and south to Wellington & the Plimmerton NZMCA Park...

...where, with rain and gale force winds forecast, we tucked ourselves into a corner hoping for a little bit of shelter and also to protect our slide-out from the southerly winds. Others also had the same idea although I think they may not had any TV reception due to the boundary building. The sun also didn't reach them until early afternoon and then only for a short time before it disappeared over the hills behind the park. 

We had a couple of places to visit in Wellington and friends to catch up with so we weren't in any hurry to board the ferry and cross over to the South Island. Which was just as well, what with the weather forecast & a holiday weekend coming up. It was time to do a little exploring.

The first place we visited was the Southward Car Museum at Paraparaumu, 30kms back up the highway. After a casual conversation with Dad when we were in Hawkes Bay, there was one particular item I wanted to see.

Southwatd Car Museum- don't you love the sign.

And here it is. This is Len Southward's speed boat 'Redhead', the first boat in Australasia to exceed 100mph on water, which he did on 22 Feb, 1953 across the Wellington Harbour. Later that year while attending a boat regatta after-function in Wellington, my father (aged 17) was invited with two others to take a ride in the boat with Len.....across the harbour at 100mph! Very cool eh? 

Here's the information and specs on 'Redhead', click on the photo to enlarge.

Once we had finished looking at 'Redhead' and watching the film clips of Len and the boat racing across the harbour, we checked out the rest of the museum's collection...

...which included a number of planes suspended from the ceiling, including this ex RNZAF de Havilland Vampire jet fighter.

We've visited a number of vehicle museums around the country and also attended various events where vintage vehicles are paraded including Napier's Art Deco, the Arrowtown Autumn Festival, the Whangamata Beach Hop and Southland's Crank Up amongst others and it never fails to amaze me how many vintage vehicles there are in this country and how well they are looked after. 

And because I already have hundreds of photos of very shiny vintage vehicles I decided to take photos of the more unusual cars at the Southward Museum. Problem was there were so many, including this 1920 Dodge Coupe 'Copper Car'.

And look at all these weird and wonderful creations! Rather than include photos of the information sheets for each vehicle, I've uploaded all my Southward Museum photos to a Flickr Album, click on this link to check them out.

I had to include this photo purely for sentimental reasons. After my sister & I got our licenses at 15, Mum & Dad bought us a car (living on the farm we used it to get to school, after school jobs, running errands & ferrying friends about). I really wanted a cool Ford Anglia (#2 car in the lineup) so was very disappointed when we only got a blue Ford Prefect (#1). Once we had our own money, my sister bought a Ford Escort (#3) and I bought a Ford Cortina (#4). Those were the days....

I'm sure the young lady who was polishing the cars while listening to her music thought I was taking a photo of her. I talked to her twice (but she didn't hear) and then I waited for so long to see if she would move on down the line but she just kept on polishing and polishing the first four cars.

Tony & Sue Collins 1926 Chevrolet 'Motorhome'- 3-1/2 years, 20,000 miles around the world

We enjoyed the museum, both reminiscing as we came across cars we were familiar with and we were pleased that we visited but we were both of the opinion that the best vehicle museum by far in the country is the Bill Richardson Transport Museum in Invercargill.

We have passed through Wellington many times as we've travelled up and down the country but have never stopped longer than a day or two and that has usually been at Evans Bay near the city centre. Now that we were parked up at Plimmerton I wanted to check out the Pauatahanui boat sheds, something I had wanted to photograph for a long time. 

It was a pleasant surprise to find out that they were only a few kilometres down the road. It wasn't pleasant that the weather packed up and I never got a chance to shoot the reflections and an early morning sunrise over the Pauatahanui Inlet though. I also didn't manage to capture the boat sheds at Titahi Bay, another perfect subject. 

I was quite excited to find a painting of Sam Hunt, his dog and one of his poems. I thought that this might have been his boat shed but on further research I found out that he owned Number 5, and darn it, I didn't take a photo of that particular shed! I'll just have to come back again. And on a sunny day.

We did manage to have one day out of the box, one of those days when Wellington shines with no wind, blue skies and warm sunshine. And as luck would have it, it was the day we decided to catch the train into the city. The Plimmerton Railway Station is just a short distance across the sports field next to the NZMCA Park. 

Luckily we decided to head into the city on the Friday (not only because of the weather), it wasn't until later we saw a sign saying that the trains wouldn't be running over Queens Birthday Weekend due to maintenance.

From the Wellington train station we walked along the waterfront towards Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand)

Photos clockwise- 1) Sealion' has an interesting paint job; hundreds of penguins and a few dozen sealions peering out at people passing by 2) Colourful Public Piano 3) Love Locks- Frank Kitts Lagoon Footbridge 4) Circa Theatre  5) Te Papa 6) Kapa Haka pedestrian lights

I had been disappointed that we didn't make it to see Peter Jackson's Great War Exhibition before it closed so when I heard that Te Papa & Weta Workshops' Gallipoli: The Scale Of Our War Exhibition had been extended I was keen to visit before it too closed (I've since found out that it won't close before ANZAC Day, 2022 at the earliest).

Te Papa- Museum of New Zealand

There was no missing where the exhibition was once we got inside.

No flash photography was allowed inside the exhibition and with it being quite dark and gloomy to suit the solemn atmosphere it would have been hard to photograph many of the displays anyway. I did manage to take photos of the life-like figures by winding my settings out to the max though.

Te Papa, working with Weta Workshops (Lord of the Rings fame), developed 'Gallipoli' into an interesting but sobering journey through the eight- month WW1 Gallipoli campaign in which 2,779 New Zealanders lost their lives.

Weta Workshop spent 24,000 hours of labour on the project, creating eight hyper-realistic (a genre of sculpture) human figures. The exhibition tells the story through the eyes and words of eight ordinary New Zealanders who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Each is captured frozen in a moment of time on a monumental scale – 2.4 times human size. The bowl under the last figure's feet is full of poppies that have added as people leave the exhibition. Visitors are invited to make a poppy up and write names on them to remember lost relatives or just the war itself.

It is truly an amazing exhibition, so well researched and displayed with 3-D maps and projections, miniatures, models, dioramas, and a range of interactive experiences that bring New Zealand’s Gallipoli story to life.

Sadly it is so realistic and very distressing to read about some of the experiences, that some people will find they may not be able to follow it through to the end- David included. Oh, the horrors of war.

Afterwards we took some time out to regather our thoughts and bring us back into the 21st century by visiting the revamped (since our last visit) Nature Zone exhibition which is on the same floor. I was pleased to see that the Colossal Squid (the only one in the world on display) has been returned for permanent viewing.

From Plimmerton we took a drive around the Pauatahanui Inlet stopping to get a photo of the beautiful historic St Alban's Church (of course) which was built in 1898...

...before blowing away the cobweds on the Pauatahanui Wetlands track which was just across the road. We walked right to the end visiting the two bird hides but of course at this time of the year there's not much to see on the ponds other than the usual ducks.

Although on the way home we did find a small flock of Royal Spoonbills/Kotuku Ngutupapa sheltering from the freezing cold wind and heavy rain that had begun to fall. Rain that didn't stop for a few days and overflowed the NZMCA Park's boundary stream which flooded the sports field next door.

Once the weather cleared and before the next winter low was due, we shifted 20kms over to the Petone Workingmens Club to catch up with friends on that side of the city. The Petone Club is an NZMCA CAP (costs apply parking), the cost is $10 per van per night and  power is available at no extra cost but it's first in first served; the caravan & bus in the bottom photo are on power.

Larger rigs need to come in the 'Out' gate, keeping an eye out for departing vehicles of course, as they won't get around the Club's building beside the 'In' gate. Also be aware if you are leaving to catch an early ferry sailing the 'Out' gate will be closed & locked. Luckily we were able to squeeze around the building and exit through the open 'In' gate because the carpark was nearly empty.

We had a good catch-up with our friends (fellow 5th-wheelers) and afterwards a lovely meal in the club with them (you don't need to be members, you just have to sign in at reception). 

With a day spare before we were due to cross Cook Strait, I went for a drive over to Wainuiomata. On the way back I stopped at the lookout overlooking Petone. Somes Island and the Wellington harbour are on the left.