Tapora & Big Sand Island

Continuing on with my Northland blogs from February, 2019

From Port Albert we headed further west to our next destination. Over hills and down dales, along dusty back country roads & weaving past tinder dry farmland through the Rodney District...

 ...until we finally reached our next camp site, Te Puni Campground at Tapora. Tapora is a small settlement at the top of the Okahukura Peninsula a large body of land that juts out into the Kaipara Harbour separating the north from the south branches of the harbour. The top of the peninsula sits right in the centre of the harbour entrance & acts as a natural barrier to incoming weather events.

The campground, which is right beside the Tapora Golf Club, is owned and run by a local farming couple who were excellent hosts. There are cabins available & a great amenities building with lovely sheltered deck for sitting on. We found a level spot on the undulating ground where the powered sites were located watched on by a curious herd of cows. 

We had come to Tapora to do some bird spotting on Big Sand Island (more on that later) and when our host heard this he was quick to point out that he often spooked Bittern/Matuku-Hurepo as he moved about the farm & the golf course. 

David checking to see where the flushed bittern was feeding

Bittern are extremely cryptic (camouflaged) and rarely seen. We have seen several on our travels, most of them have been flushed out of their cover by us being clumsy & not knowing they were about & we also had a couple fly across the road in front of the ute as we've travelled back roads. We've also seen one in freeze mode 'pointing' in a roadside ditch but it was gone by the time we re-traced out tracks. Now we were keen to see if we could finally find a bittern in a wetland up close. We thought we'd try the golf course first.

And sure enough we found one. And once again we were clumsy! We'd only just crept along the fence line down to the swamp when a bittern flew out without warning, right in front of us on the edge of the reeds where it must have been foraging. Bugger. Although luckily I had my camera ready to go but unluckily I didn't have it focused for a bird in flight.

The next day we crept to the top of the hill & lay on our bellies with binoculars scanning the wetland below but I thought we'd probably spooked yesterday's bird & it had gone deeper into the swamp or flown to one of the other wet areas on the course. I left David and moved onto a smaller area I'd seen the previous day.

And as I walked along the fence looking for a place to climb over I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted a bird 'pointing' in the thick reeds. 

I stopped in my tracks and crouched down carefully photographing the bittern as I willed David to come over the hill. It wasn't until I processed the photos that I could see that the bird's eyes were totally fixed on me. Bitterns freeze like this to blend into their surroundings although this one was a little easier to spot against the surrounding green reeds. 

Check the eyes- click on the photo to enlarge

As I cautiously approached it flattened it's chest to the ground and turned it head slightly still keeping one beady eye on me. I stopped and backed off a little hoping to keep it there until David came looking for me.

But then just as I turned my head to check for David it grabbed it's chance to escape. And of course I didn't have my camera ready so once again I have another blurry photo to add to several others. 

And again, it wasn't until I processed the photos, that I spotted that the bird had a really weird leg & foot. It looks like it's missing a foot in the photo above but when you check the photo below, the foot is folded back up the bird's back. Perhaps that's why it sat tight for quite some time. David finally made it over the hill but all I had were photos to show him.

And again the next day we had another look in both areas but didn't manage to flush anymore bitterns. It's back to the drawing board.  

We walked around the course checking out a few other wet areas but the bitterns had moved on. After seeing large areas of new avocado orchards further up north we thought this planting beside the golf course was another avocado orchard but once up close I could see that this was in fact a pomegranate orchard. The wind breaks are a tall plant with flowing leaves a bit like bamboo (but it's not) I've seen this plant growing in my sister's garden in Whangarei.

Just up the road from our Tapora camp was the entrance to Big Sand Island/Manukapua & the Manukapua Wildlife Refuge where we were hoping to see some wading birds. 

The island is in fact joined to the peninsula by a large expanse of sand which looks to only be covered in sea water at extremely high or spring tides. The island itself is a series of large sand dunes sparsely covered in dune grasses & scrub, it's front the first barrier at the entrance to the harbour. 

We made it across a sandy track & into the dunes before our progress is stopped by deep soft sand. The last thing we wanted was to get bogged down in the dunes without another soul in sight. I carried on, on foot, following the track over the last few dunes until I reached the spectacular view out the harbour entrance; Pouto Point is on the right, the north side accessed from Dargaville and South Head on the left.

Once I was back at the ute we drove around to the south side of the island across massive expanses of solid sand. David did a bit of bird spotting but with the tide well out it was pretty hard to see any waders.

Our host also sent us up another access track across his farm to the north side of the harbour just east of Big Sand Island, to the Okahukura Conservation area. 

This section was prime real estate for many of our less well known & rarely seen birds such as Marsh Crakes, Spotted Crakes, Banded Rail & Fernbirds along with Bitterns. 

We hadn't planned our visit to Tapora too well, the tide didn't suit here either and we also did our walks during the heat of the day. I think a dedicated bird spotting trip would need to planned to have any luck, and it would be best early morning. Still it was a great day for a walk.

I had to zoom in on this 'dinosaur' and take a photo to identify it, it certainly looked like a boat hull from our location, hundreds of metres away. And there are all the waders in front of it. 

We had one more place to check out, the aptly named Birds Beach on another point of the peninsula but we'd lost a bit of our enthusiasm in the intense summer heat so instead we parked on the foreshore and had lunch sitting on the tailgate in as much shade as we could find while watching holidaying locals carry buckets of cockles back from the mud flats. 

I can't quite decide if this would be a cool address to have or not.....

With our bird spotting adventures over I did a little exploring back up the road to the top of the hills behind Tapora. This is looking back towards the Kaipara Harbour entrance with the two points on the horizon.

I had also planned to add another church to my photo collection, the very picturesque Minniesdale Chapel which is not far off the main road but not suitable for a 14metre rig to drive down to, so I had to shoot it before we left the area. 

The tiny & cute Minniesdale Chapel has been open since 1867 & in continuous use ever since.

Many of the early Albertland settlers are buried in the old cemetery beside the church. One of the headstones looks to be wooden with a huge crack through it & the base rotting away. I've not come across a wooden headstone before so I hope it doesn't disappear altogether. No wait there was one, Somebody's Darling headstone at the Lonely Graves but it was inside a protective case. And I wonder what a headstone is called when it's wood? A headwood? I don't think so. 

I also drove into the Atiu Creek Regional Park, one of the many fabulous parks located around the outer Auckland area and run by the Auckland Council. 

The park is a working farm but also includes many walking tracks, mountain bike & horse trails and a couple of camp sites although the top carpark is the only one for RVs. Unfortunately I didn't have time to explore any of the tracks but it's a place I'd like to return to one day.

I was sad to find dozens of dead stick insects on the concrete path beside the toilet block. I suspect that the building had recently been sprayed for spiders & these were unfortunate victims too. I collected them all up and buried them under a pile of leaves.

Back on the road and on our way further south it was a surprise to round a corner in the highway & see a famous sculpture off in the distance. A quick snap through the window was all I managed...

Little did I know this was not the last I would see of the Gibbs Sculpture Farm...

Boat Trip to Mou Waho

Real-time

I thought I'd post about our trip to Mou Waho Island before it becomes a distant memory. You'll remember that Mou Waho is the 'famous' island in Lake Wanaka, I posted a quick blog on it the day we visited. 

Mou Waho is 15km up the Lake Wanaka from our camp at Glendhu Bay and we needed calm and settled weather before we attempted the trip in our faithful Takacat inflatable. We'd already seen how quickly the lake could cut up rough and especially when there was a nor'wester blowing. It funnels down the narrow lake straight off the Southern Alps making the waters very choppy. 

We headed out on a sunny, calm and beautiful blue sky morning, launching the boat straight off the beach in front of us- one of the reasons we've been parked up here at Glendhu for nearly three weeks.

There was a slight ripple on the surface and the air a little nippy once we were underway, we're heading for the point of Roys Peninsula on the left.

It's not long before Mt Aspiring comes into view to our left.

We say goodbye to Glendhu Bay...

...as we pass Roys Peak to our right (Roy's a pretty popular guy around here). We can see part of the Te Araroa Trail/Millennium Walk tracking around the the bottom near the water. 

We pass Mou Tapu Island (a DOC scenic reserve) and can see Mou Waho ahead of us. The lake is a mill pond, we couldn't have picked a better day.

Mt Alta Conservation Area and West Wanaka Station are across the lake to our left.

While to our right I can see the isthmus that separates Stevensons Arm from Lake Wanaka proper. Stevensons Arm is a large very narrow waterway that is part of the lake and accessed from near the Clutha River outlet. When we stay at The Outlet Campground we look straight down the arm.

And finally we're approaching Mou Waho Island where we can see  a floating jetty beside the track entrance. 

We give the jetty a miss and head straight for the beach...

Where David checks his ViewRanger app to make sure we're in the right place! :)

The bird song is amazing, I could hear it over the outboard as we approached and once that was switched off it was deafening. Mainly Bellbirds and flocks of Brown Creepers with fantails, warblers, dunnocks and a few others flitting about. 

Bellbird/Korimako- Male 

There's a small DOC campground, with a gas BBQ, table and toilet nearby. And a another beautiful sandy beach with crystal clear water.

What a pity we can't get 'Out There' out here, but I'm sure boaties would stay here in tents over summer. And what a great spot far from the maddening crowd.

We decided to have lunch on our return from the hike up to the lake so set off up the well formed 1km track. This is looking back down the lake, Glendhu Bay is around that far point on the right.

The track climbs steadily upwards, winding back and forth so it's not too steep. And the views are to die for. Across the water are Mt Burke (1417m) to the left with Mt Gold (1286m) appearing to be taller on the right. Down in the clearing you can just see the top of the DOC toilets.

There are seats placed at regular intervals on the walk up- here's a pano looking north up Lake Wanaka towards the Southern Alps.

Thirty minutes after setting out we pass through a bush tunnel and step out onto a rocky platform to find a lake in front of us. This pool sits 150 metres above the surface of lake Wanaka and this is what we'd come to see. Arethusa Pool is a tiny, beautiful, deep blue pool surrounded by rock and gnarly old manuka and there's not a ripple to break the surface.

Maori named the pool Moutimu, then early European settlers named it Paradise Lake, then the lake was renamed Arethusa pool in the 1920s which comes from Greek Mythology. 

Arethusa was the nymph of a sacred spring on an island off the coast of Sicily. And I bet there would have been a few nymphs swimming in here over the years, with and without clothing.

There's another short steep 10 minute climb to the bluff lookout and through a gap in the bush on the way up, I can see the waters of Lake Wanaka behind and the rock islands in the pool that help make this unique place 'famous in New Zealand'.

There's a bit of scary clamber over a large rocky protrusion to reach the the edge of the bluff and look down over the top of the pool. But what a magnificent and spectacular view it is. Absolutely breath-taking and something very special. I've seen a lot of amazing New Zealand landscapes in the last three years but this has got to be up there with the best, in fact I'd put it in the top five.

So now we can see the rock islands- an island in a lake, on an island in a lake, on an island in an ocean! And across the water I can see Stevenson Arm and the isthmus that we passed at water level.

I waited for David to get back down to pool level so I could take a photo, can you see him on the rock platform? While I was waiting for him to get there, a NZ Falcon/Karearea flew in and landed in the overhanging bush beside me. I caught sight of movement as I turned to see if David had arrived and it flew out over the pool and swooped down and off to another bluff further down the island. The one time I didn't have my camera ready! 

This is looking down Lake Wanaka past Mou Tapu Island to Roys Peak behind. Glendhu Bay is around the island (to the left) and off to the far right.

And one last photo- the pano that I posted in the first blog. It was hard to pull myself away from but I reluctantly headed off to rejoin David at the pool. 

At various intervals along the track both on the way up and down we could here rustling and moving about deep in the undergrowth. I waited and watched and spotted the rear-ends of a few wekas scratching about but they always disappeared into the darkness. On the way back down I found this weka's rear end but he was more interested in catching whatever he had found. I decided he wasn't going to disappear too so I turned the flash on( I usually try to take bush birds in natural light) and got David to make a loud noise. It took a couple of loud noises before it decided to see who was making it. 

We got back to our little bay and found a large log to sit on to have lunch out of the hot sun. Once again we're eating lunch surrounded by the most amazing scenery.

The trees around us were busy with bellbirds; singing, jumping from branch to branch and chasing each other back and forward across the bay. This male sat still  long enough to broadcast his song to any who would listen and then fluffed himself up to scare his rivals off....

...or to impress the ladies, I'm not too sure. This little lady didn't look too interested in all the goings on.

Just as we were packing up we heard a boat approaching and around the corner came a Wanaka tour boat with two guests. You should have seen the skippers face when he spotted us packing our gear into the Takacat. He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing and was quick to tell us that it would have been highly unlikely that we'd have got to the island any other day this summer- the lake has been very rough. He told us about rescuing some kayakers a week or so ago when there were 3 metre waves (I think that was a slight exaggeration to push the point).

He left with his guests, heading for the track, carrying a huge pack on his back. In answering David's query he said they were off to have lunch and a swim at the pool. Going by the size I think he must have had table and chairs and a change tent on his back!

Just as we left another smaller boat passed by, fishing rods hanging off the back and then out of nowhere a jet ski with a very determined looking driver roared by.

We headed off towards home, back down the most amazingly calm lake, we couldn't have wished for a better day.

Wanaka town is way down there on the shoreline...

Roys Peak (1581m) reflected in the still water...

This morning's tiny ripples have gone from Glendhu Bay too, as we head back across it...

Within sight of home, a gentle breeze ruffles the surface. We're back, safe and sound after an awesome day visiting a very special island.....well actually, a very special island in a lake, on an island in a lake, on a... ok, you get the picture.