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.

Sand, Sea & Sunrises- Tokerau Beach

Catch-up

From Maitai Bay we moved back down the Karikari Peninsula to Tokerau Beach where the sunrises are spectacular.

We decided we'd stay at the Tokerau Beach NZMCA Park rather than the freedom camping area further down at Ramp Rd; we did take a look but found it was quite busy with all the relatively flat areas in amongst the sand dunes taken. And the track in was also very uneven with large dips and holes full of water. There were a couple of places we may have squeezed into but we didn't feel like upsetting the neighbours. 

The NZMCA Park is a large site, with access to Tokerau Beach down a short grassy track between a horse paddock and an orchard. We parked near the back fence which will soon be a lovely green natural fence; a great way to soften the boundary between neighbours. I did have a chuckle to myself though when I saw that the native climber Tecomanthe/Three Kings Vine has been planted.

There's no holding them back once they stop sulking about being disturbed, it'll be like the day of the triffids when their strong vines head out. I had several vines growing on my pergolas in Tauranga and I very nearly had to take a chainsaw to them to keep them contained.

The Tecomathe is not so rare now that it has come to suburbia but once there was only one lone plant in existence. It was discovered on Three Kings Islands, 55 km off the northern tip of New Zealand during a scientific survey in 1945. No other specimens have ever been found in the wild and all existing vines have come about after the original plant was propagated.

They do have beautiful pale green creamy white flowers that hang like bunches of grapes from the underneath of the vines, they burst directly out of the branches at odd spots along the length (even though it's known as a vine, it's actually a tree with vine like branches). The flowers have a very faint perfume during the evenings.

I loved the Gumdiggers Hut that the local NZMCA Branch have made for the sign-in kiosk; it's great to see some creative flair in our parks. And like other parks there was a lovely little herb & flower garden growing behind the shed, always a welcome treat to those of us that live on the road full-time.

When we arrived at the Park there was just one other caravan on site. As we stopped to decide where to park, a couple came out of the caravan towards us waving. We didn't recognise them but they obvious knew who we were, they have been following our travels for quite some time. 'We knew our paths would cross one day' they said.

Ken & Sandra are David's nephew's in-laws and we'd last seen them at the nephew's wedding 25 years ago even though they travel regularly around New Zealand and holidayed alongside David's sister & husband in their motorhome for a number of years. We had a great time catching up over the following week or so, enjoying a few happy hours and comparing fishing & travel stories.

Some of you will recognise this stunning sunset photo over the Tokerau Beach Park, it appears as the opening page photo on my latest article in the April/May NZMCA Motor Caravanner magazine which has just been released. 

Tokerau Beach itself is a beautiful wide sandy beach that stretches for miles in a large curve around the western side of Doubtless Bay. 

Other than the seaside settlement of Tokerau Beach at the top of the bay...

 ....the rest of the coastline is deserted; just waves, sand and dunes for as far as the eye can see. Vehicles are allowed to drive along the beach and at low tide there's a steady stream of cars, utes, boats on trailers, motorbikes, quad bikes and even a few motorhomes driving up and down the beach (motorhomes are actually not allowed but that didn't stop a few hire vans from trying it out).

I didn't have to wait long for a subject to enter my frame anytime I visited the beach, sometimes it was like Piccadilly Station! You'll remember Coca-cola Lake from my last post and its tannin stained water, well this is a tannin stained stream which flows out to sea in front of the NZMCA Park. And yes it's naturally stained and yes, it's safe to swim in (if it was deep enough).

While at Tokerau Beach we drove over to the otherside of the  Karikari Peninsula to check out another 'secret' freedom camping area.

Once through the small settlement of Rangiputa, the road ends at a DOC reserve, a track continues on through the reserve to a small sandy point. Rangiputa forms one side of the entrance to the huge & shallow Rangaunu Harbour. Apparently there is good fishing off this point and along the nearby shoreline. 

It is a very pretty spot and I can see it's appeal in the off season when there might be one or two vans parked up. But I've seen photos of vans packed higgledy-piggledy into this tiny space which has very few level areas; I'm afraid that has no appeal to us at all. I also wonder at the sign at the entrance to the DOC reserve, a sign with a a line through a tent which means 'No Camping'. Now, does that mean tents only or all camping? I'm sure everyone who stays here would suggest it's for tents only....

On our way home we came across the Tokerau version of a traffic jam, sheep from Rangiputa Station being shifted.

I had spotted a church out at Merita near Maitai Bay when we were staying there, so I went on my own tikitour back out to check it out. I decided, after speaking to a couple we'd met at Maitai and who were also parked up at Rangiputa when we visited, to take the Whatuwhiwhi Road around the outside of the peninsula. They had driven the road in their motorhome, in the opposite direction, most of it had been through a pine plantation. 

I had read that it was a private road but they said they got through, there were a couple of gates to open which weren't locked. Unfortunately I didn't turn off when I should have and found myself driving down into a private little settlement at the end of the road. Uh-oh, I went to back up and found a car behind me. I smiled sweetly and said I was looking for a church I'd seen, he told me I'd have to drive back to the main road and go the usual way round. I spotted the sign saying 'Private Road' a mile or so back and passed the pine forest road the others had taken- private also!

So after that rigmarole when I finally did get to the church, I couldn't decide if the rough gravel track up to it was private or not, there were no signs. Having come this far there was no turning back....until I found myself in the front garden of a house, and the church in a paddock further on! Uh-oh again, I did a quick 20 point turn and headed back down where I decided a long shot of the church was the best I was going to get today! 

At the top of the peninsula near the turnoff into the Maitai Bay DOC Camp, the road carries on straight ahead, this one really is private and there are large signs saying so. Instead I took a nearby side track which I bumped and slid along until I reached an area that resembled a carpark.  This is on the west side of the peninsula overlooking Karikari Beach and all the way along to Puheke Beach beyond the hill which in turn is actually not too far as the crow flies from Rangaputa. This is the beach that the Carrington Resort overlooks (see previous blog). There's a short sandy track down to the beach but it's blowing a gale today so I'll only stop to take in the views.

I drove back down the peninsula and decided while I was out exploring I needed to visit another beach I'd read about.  I did take a short-cut but decided that discretion was the better part of valour and turned around when I found a large deep bog in front of me while trying to get around the edge of a large swamp (I'd also heard about the short-cut from the couple in the motorhome, they had tried to drive it too but the track had become too rugged for them). 

So I took the long way round- actually the same road that takes you to Rangiputa but I turned off a few kilometres beforehand and eight kilometres of gravel later...

...I found myself on the most stunning beach I've seen so far on our travels. 

This is beautiful Puheke Beach and I had it all to myself! Squeaky white sand and crystal clear turquoise waters, it's looked like a tropical paradise. I wasn't brave enough to go for a swim, it wasn't quite warm enough. but the sand was lovely and warm so I sat down near the top of a dune for awhile, watching the clouds as they rolled and tumbled past overhead, chased by a squall I could see coming from Mt Camel's direction.

And what are the chances of this? Only in New Zealand. On the way home I came across the same traffic jam as the other day.

Of course a visit to the Far North wouldn't be complete without a stop at the 'famous in New Zealand'  fish and chip shop at Mangonui. I say 'famous in New Zealand' but in fact from the cross section of people lined up to buy lunch this place is now world famous and on many tourists 'must do' list, such is the hype generated by social media and review sites (she says ironically).

The restaurant's location adds to the character & atmosphere of the place- perched on poles over the harbour with a covered deck where you can have your meal watching fishing boats come and go from the nearby wharf.  Fishing boats that bring the restaurant it's daily supply of fresh fish and in particular Bluenose, the Mangonui's Fish Shop's specialty.

Can you see David patiently waiting....for his lunch! 

The meal was excellent, fresh thick fillets of fish and crispy hot chips- although I would say a little on the small size for a serving of an iconic Kiwi dish. And because I was missing our Puriri Bay freshly caught snapper, I also bought a large tub of kokoda (raw fish salad) to take home. Rather expensive but well worth it and nearly as nice as my own home-made salad!

After lunch we took a leisurely stroll around the charming historic harbourside settlement of Mangonui. We didn't know it yet, but we returned to Mangonui later on in our travels, during the New Year holiday season. What a transformation! The queue for fish 'n chips was at least 20 deep and trailed off down the footpath, there wasn't a carpark to be found, traffic was bumper to bumper in and out of the village, every other cafe & eatery was bursting at the seams and there were people everywhere! It's times like this that I am thankful that we can visit these popular places outside of the holiday season.

Tokerau Beach sunrises really were worth getting out of bed for... 

...although I think much of the population had the same idea which was fine as they made great subjects as they passed by...

...although I had to pan fast to catch this guy. It never fails to amaze me what I get to see in the golden gloom of sunrise.

You may recall the post I did in real-time on the dolphin stranding at Tokerau Beach, I took the fire truck photo the morning after and I'm pretty sure they were driving the length of the beach to check that there had been no further strandings overnight.

Before this post gets any longer than it already is, here's one final photo from beautiful Tokerau Beach; sunrise on the pohutukawa trees that were just starting to bloom along the beach.