Tinopai To Port Albert, Northland

Continuing on with my Northland blogs from February, 2019. 

From Dargaville we headed south to our next destination, Tinopai, a small settlement at the bottom of the Hukatere Peninsula, a reasonably large finger of land that juts out into the mighty Kaipara Harbour.

The Tinopai Camp Ground is right one the edge of the harbour with fabulous views out over the water.

It was the perfect spot to spend a few days relaxing in the middle of a hot summer.

Powered sites are available at the top end of the camp beside the water too & near the facilities, which, like many classic kiwi campgrounds are pretty basic but adequate. 

Of course the harbour is tidal and the view doesn't look quiet so inviting when the tide is out. Except when I captured it late in the evening, the sky with a rosy hue, as the sun dipped below the horizon behind us.

My sister & husband- who we'd seen several times while travelling around Northland- drove across from Whangarei to spend the night in their tent beside us before we headed further south & back to the South Island. 

There's a small marina beside the campground with the usual collection of small boats & old launches; some well loved, others that had seen better days. I didn't have to go far to capture the stunning sunrises either, just to the back of the rig.

I wanted to take a sunrise photo of the Tinopai wharf which is about 2kms further down the road, I drove down to check it out...

And then picked the wrong morning to shoot it. Although I still captured the golden glow, I would have loved it had there been the cloud cover & colours of the sunrise up above in the mosaic. After an evening of great company, good food & fine wine I was a little slow in getting out the door in time to make it down to the wharf for that one. 

We stopped several times on our way down to Tinopai so I could add to my collection of country church photos. And this church was high on my list. 

The Parirau Zion Church is tucked down a lane off the main road. Since these photos were taken there is now a Parirau Church Restoration Committee who are fundraising to restore the church to it's former glory. The Zion Church was the the first permanent Anglican Church to be erected in the Parirau settlement in 1889. It replaced an earlier nikau (native palm) building and became the place of worship for the local Ratana congregation in the 1920s. 

Other churches (and a friendly mule) I captured during our journey down to Tinopai and around to Port Albert are below. Clockwise from top left are; the 1866-67 Matakohe Pioneer Church across the road from the Kauri Museum, St Michael on the Hill (1845) at Hukatere,  All Saints Church (1883) at Mititai, the Paparoa Community Church. And the final one is the Coates Memorial Church at Matakohe, opened in 1950 and the only church in NZ to be dedicated to a NZ politician; Joseph Gordon Coates (1878-1943) was a member of the House of Representatives for 32 years & Prime Minister from 1925-1928.

On our way to our next overnight camp at Port Albert we stopped at The Kauri Museum in Matakohe. 

We enjoyed our visit & had a good look through the many rooms & displays but felt we didn't quite do the visit justice. There were just so many rooms and nooks & crannies to explore with a lot of written information to take in too. It was another very hot summer's day and we were keen to get back on the road and to our next destination in the comfort of our air conditioned ute. This would be a great place to explore on a cold or wet day.

Our next stop was a freedom camping site at the end of the road at Port Albert, another settlement on the edge of the Kaipara Harbour but this time on the south side. We ignored our GPS which kept telling us to turn around and head further south & turn off the main highway at Wellsford. Instead we turned off at Te Hana and wove our way through some dodgy back country roads to Port Albert. 

The freedom camping area is right beside the harbour with another long wharf jutting out into the water.

But no marina this time just a handful of lovely old yachts & fishing boats anchored out in the main channel.

One of the reasons for stopping here was so I didn't have to cook dinner! No seriously I had read great reviews for the fish 'n chip takeaways from the Port Albert General Store, just up the road from the campsite. I can happily report that they were indeed excellent fish 'n chips. I wandered up the road to get them and then we sat outside under the awning eating them in the warm evening air as the sun went down. 

As you can see it was indeed a very hot day, and especially so with no breeze to speak of.

Locals came down to the harbour to fish & swim as the sun sunk below the horizon and temperature dropped a little. 

The next morning dawned clear and still with just a hint of mist rising from the water. It was going to be another hot summer's day.

Camping at Pounawea- Part 3; Exploring

Real-time

Continuing on from Part 2

We did a couple of day trips when the weather was settled, the first was to Purakaunui Falls, which we've visited on one of our previous trips through the Catlins. 

With a shortage of rain in the Catlins at the moment (really?), they were nowhere near as impressive as our last visit but the kids still enjoyed scrambling over the rocks...

...and climbing inside an old tree, with a hollow trunk, along the path.

We then drove out to beautiful Purakaunui Bay which, other than being a spectacular beach with a dramatic cliff backdrop, was also one of the locations used in Narnia- The Lion, the Witch & The Wardrobe.

There's a large DOC camp at the end of the road and overlooking the beach although not all the area is waterfront.

There were plenty of campers already set up for the coming holiday period and more arriving while we were there. 

The road into the bay is narrow, single lane in places and winding but the rewards for persevering with it are well worth the effort...

We may take the 5th-wheeler in on this visit but if not, we will definitely return after the crowds have gone home.

We walked along the beach to the end of the bay and back again, stopping to watch as a guy launched his jetski high into the surf  Can you spot the person sitting in the rocks in the top photo? It wasn't until after I took the shot and continued on towards the crib that I saw her sheltering out of the wind.

On another day, the families (ours and their friends) drove to Papatowai to have lunch and a walk on the beach.

Rain threatened but never arrived, the kids enjoyed exploring the rock pools, and afterwards we did a bush walk around the point to King Rock. Although by the time we broke out of the bush we were all a little weary so we told the kids the walk ended at the top and not down on the beach, by the rock below. I'm not so sure they believed us especially as marker poles marched off along the ridge.

There are some very generous people out there, here's a lovely vegetable patch you can help yourself to. I stopped to see if there were any herbs I could pick, but sadly there weren't, and while there were a few veges- spinach & lettuce, I could have had a few leaves off, I left them for the next person. 

But look what I did find, a blast from the past- a gooseberry bush! We used to have one growing wild on the farm when we were kids. It was a race between Mum and us to find and eat the ripe ones. Sadly these berries were like bullets, another month or two and they'd be lovely and juicy.

I was actually more interested in the two gorgeous donkeys in the paddock behind the fence. I was hoping they would come over and say hello but they stayed put, sheltering out of the wind beside the house.

Our last stop for the day was at the Lost Gypsy Gallery on the main road near the Papatowai settlement. You couldn't miss it, there were cars lined up and squeezed in here and there, down both sides of the road.

A far cry from when we paid a visit to the gallery back in February, 2014, when there was just a handful of people visiting the old bus.

Because we had seen it before, we left the families exploring and carried on home after checking out the Papatowai DOC Camp which was also very busy gearing up for New Year. It's a nice enough site close to the river and beach but surrounded in bush with no water views.

I haven't done a blog on random photos so I decided to slot this one in here- it's too good to leave out. A few of the guys had a game at the Owaka golf course one afternoon and Allister was the 'lucky' recipient, winning the inaugural Pounawea Camp Golf Challenge trophy. What looks like a pig's ear is a dried up sealion flipper that one of the kids brought back to camp after finding it out on the estuary. I bet this trophy doesn't find its way home in a hurry.

All too soon it was time for the family to pack up and head home, we had a fantastic time sharing Christmas and the New Year with them for another year (Mavora Lakes last year) and enjoying their company without living in each other's pockets. I know they were keen to get home and finish unpacking and sorting our their new home but it was sad to see them go.

Thank God they've gone.... (click on the link for the family joke)

And a few days later, reluctantly, it was time for us to up-sticks and move on too. You know you've enjoyed a campsite when the daisies are flourishing around your wheels and the grass has died under the mat.

If you're visiting the top-end of the Catlins and looking for somewhere to stay, try the Pounawea Motor Camp, it's an awesome family and dog friendly camp tucked into beautiful native bush on the edge of the ever changing Catlins River estuary and surrounded by bird and wildlife with some great fishing. Thanks Glenn & Lee-ann for your hospitality and a big thankyou to the regulars- camping families that have been visiting Pounawea for generations- thanks for making us so welcome.

(NB- for NZMCA members; the camp is not in the NZMCA directory or on the app (hopefully corrected soon) - but the link above takes you to their website.

Camping at Pounawea, Catlins- Part 1; Partying

Real-time 

We'll have been parked up here at the Pounawea Holiday Park for three weeks this coming Friday and I can't imagine where the time has gone. We've had, and are still having, an awesome time enjoying the comings and goings of camp life during a very busy silly season.

It's helped that we had the park virtually to ourselves for the first few days. Then a few days before Christmas, campers started trickling in and filling in the gaps...

...including the family from Winton in their caravan and the 'Taj Mahal' (as Rachel calls their shelter). That's theirs the blue & yellow shelter; the caravan and awning are out of sight, tucked in behind it.

Boxing Day brought a few more in...

and the 27th December was the busiest day, with plenty of new arrivals squeezing into all available spaces; caravans, motorhomes and tents of all sizes and shapes along with a few boats, plenty of children's bikes...

...and a couple of dozen very well behaved dogs....or should that be very well behaved owners who kept them on leads and under control at all times. I think one of the reasons the camp is so popular is because families can bring all their family members on holiday.

Amongst the assortment of arrivals over the last 2 weeks has been this cutie...

...and these two behemoths.

They belong to two German couples who shipped their vehicles, first to Australia for 4 months to explore the country, and then onto New Zealand for another few months.

One of the men told me they hadn't had much luck travelling 'off-road' in New Zealand- I'm not so sure they'd fit through some of the backcountry station gates or along some of the narrow gorge tracks offroad, but I gave them a few places to check out when they got to Central Otago.

The weather has been far from perfect but we have had a number of blue sky and warm sunny days. This morning was the first day we've woken up to hear rain on the roof (although we've heard it regularly on and off during the night).

And we have had quite a few grey days with passing showers, often with a cold wind blowing. It helps that the camp is tucked into a sheltered corner and often, unless you move out onto the estuary, you wouldn't know it was blowing a gale. Lets just say the weather hasn't dampened the spirits of a resilient bunch of campers.

We had a very long and relaxed Christmas Day starting with brunch and present opening in the Taj Mahal...

...followed by a mid afternoon Christmas dinner.

It was wonderful to be able to share Christmas with Ruby & Ollie although we were a little sad to be so far away from our other two grandchildren, Maddie & Joel in Tauranga.

On Boxing Day we had a lovely treat when Adam (a fellow camper) brought us over some Koura to eat.

Koura, their Maori name, as in Kaikoura (kai= food, koura= crayfish), are small freshwater crayfish that live in streams and creeks. They can be caught in small yabby traps, set similar to crayfish pots, or be enticed out from their cover by a piece of meat on a line, but Adam is a 'Southern Man', he feels for them under the water, sometimes up to his shoulder, along the banks and under the tree debris, looking for holes and crevices that they might be hiding in. 

Sometimes they'll latch onto his finger and he can retrieve them that way or he'll pull them out by a leg or the tail. It's not only koura he finds in some of the holes; I've seen a photo of him cradling, 'hugging' and laying beside (to get a size comparison) the biggest, fattest and longest eel I've seen in a long while! Bloody hell, he has nerves of steel and the 'no fear' of youth. It was possibly even bigger than the ones we saw under the jetty at Lake Rotoiti in the Nelson Lakes. 

Ever since we've been on the road, I've been wanting to see some Koura, I have memories of Dad taking us hunting for them out the back of Hastings when we were kids. So everytime we are near a stream or creek that looks a suitable habitat I tell David, there'll be koura in there and I have a quick scan. I'm sure he thinks I'm pulling his leg because we've yet to find any.

Adam kindly cooked the tiny crays for us...

And David showed the kids how to break their heads off and peel the tails, just like oversized prawns. They taste much the same too. Although going by the look on Ruby's face, I'm not so sure she thought they were such a good idea. But, as her Mum encourages them to try everything at least once, she gave it a go, and ended up giving them the big thumbs up too.

There were a couple of photos I didn't include in the first post on Pounawea- one of them was of the Pounawea 'Dolphin' (just for you Jenny & Robin), a historic and slightly forlorn looking structure out in the middle of the estuary 

Now 135 years old, I hope there are plans to restore the 'Dolphin' or at least stop it from keeling over (click on the photo to enlarge).

Tucked around the corner in the Owaka River estuary is an old kauri scow that has seen better days. Scows have no keel and were therefore suitable for river trading early last century, the 107 year old Portland is the last hold scow in New Zealand. Many scows were used in the Pacific during WW11 and never returned.

The Portland is privately owned although I suspect the owner would rather wish he didn't own it now. After purchasing it from another private owner he moved it down the river to where it now lays after finding much of the rotting planking fell apart as it was being moved.

To be continued...