Mahia Peninsula- A Trip Down Memory Lane; Part 2

Catch-up

Continuing on from Part 1

There was one more very important part of Mahia I was looking forward to exploring; the coast road out along the north side of the peninsula. The road passes through the small settlement of Mahia (we called it 'Mahia proper') and on along the rocky shoreline, before hopefully, being able to drive along the beach to 'The Cactus'. 'The Cactus' is a large group of Agave americana just like the ones below and was, and still is, a well known landmark along the beach.

Agave americana- a very familiar sight along the peninsula

This was where our family spent many happy hours; we'd load the trusty Holden up and head off  fishing, setting craypots, picnicking, sunbathing, swimming, and best of all, exploring the hundreds of rock pools that formed along the papa rock reefs as the tide went out.

That's me with a zinc nose wearing the horrible green toweling hat! (Circa 1975-6)

My childhood memory of the road was long, winding and dusty, and then there were the miles and miles of beach to drive along. As I've now discovered, it isn't actually that far; it must have been the trip home that has played on my memory. That long drive back after a day out baking in the hot sun, covered in salt and sand and when you're tired and hungry and you just want to get home. And you're squashed into the car with your siblings who are just as ratty. Yes, it was a long road.

I'm sure there was an old wonky bridge that crossed the small Whangawehi Harbour

...now there's a better one, but still one way.

We round a final bluff and across the water I can see a few houses where the road ends and the drive along the beach starts. The road splits in two just a little further on; the main road carrying on into the interior of the peninsula where there are several large farm stations. 

The stations are still there but nowadays the road also leads to Rocket Lab's launching pad at the far end of the peninsula, 20kms of gravel road away. There is no way to visit RocketLab (unless you have business there) and in fact you can only see the launch pad from the lookout at Black Beach/Reef, way back near Nuhaka on the main road into Mahia.

We turned onto the side road that used to lead to the beach and bump and splash our way through the large pot-holes on a well worn track. Sadly after a kilometre or so our way is blocked by a locked gate. Access is only along the beach at low tide and I guess by walking or on a quad bike as it's still a rocky coastline here. I don't know the ins and outs or the history but I guess the landowners just got fed up with being taken advantage of. 

I did have a lovey chat with 'little sister', an elderly Maori lady who was letting her lawnmower man out the gate. She told me 'big sister', who lived up the drive, had the key to the gate and she kept it close (even though she also had a key in her hot little hand). 

And that 'big brother' who lived even further along, was in trouble because he'd given the key to some nephews who had passed it onto others. She also gave me the rundown of all the local happenings and family squabbles along with some of the politics regarding letting Rocket Lab set up on their family land. She told me of the 'big suits' that came from town to see them and she wasn't happy even though they were whanau. I would have learnt the whole history of Mahia had I stayed much longer, I had trouble getting away from her, I must have said a dozen farewells!

A nearby house- abandoned

We drove back along the road a little way and found a spot to have lunch; near Aurora Point, right above the papa rock platforms that were now fully exposed at low tide.

The day was very warm with a misty haze over the land and sea caused by the ice crystal laden halo around the sun. 

After lunch I wandered out onto the platform where these amazing 'crazy paving' rock structures have formed and been worn by the tide and wave movement. Each ridge had a different pattern.

Looking back towards David and the ute. 'Little sister', also told me the land behind, where the caravan sits, was sold to a well known wealthy businessman for a few million dollars.

After lunch we headed home, stopping a few more times to check out the unusual rock formations.

A few days later I drove out along the peninsula again, stopping to take more photos now that the sky was blue. This is looking west just before Mahia (proper).

A shallow covering of water washes in over the papa platform as the tide comes in near Mahia.

Here are a few more photos from my road trip. Many of the old baches have now been replaced with flasher holiday homes and there are also more permanent residents along the road now.

At least there are some people pleased with Rocket Lab's arrival in this sleepy part of the New Zealand. 

On my way home I stopped in at one last place we used to visit at low tide, Oraka Beach, where there is now a freedom camping area.

We used to dig for pipis in the estuary here, and it's also where my youngest brother nearly drowned when he was a toddler. I don't remember the incident myself but from what Mum & Dad used to tell us, he was there one moment, gone the next. He was playing in the shallows and fell over disappearing under the murky water. They had trouble locating him and it was a few scary seconds before one of them found him by feel and pulled him clear, spluttering and choking. 

We come across so many old abandoned caravans on our travels, not to mention vehicles and boats; here's another one I saw on the main peninsula road. It's such a shame they're left to be swallowed up by their surroundings when I'm sure there'd be people out there that would love to give them a new lease of life.

All good things must come to an end and eventually it came time to hitch up and head off again on our adventures. Not least because our wheels were slowly disappearing into the soft ground. Who said it never rains in the Bay? 

And for the first time in a very long time we had to do the suburban thing; buy a couple of refuse stickers to put on our rubbish bags and leave them at the gate! Luckily to be collected on the day we left, otherwise I'm sure Kevin & Susan would have found them ripped open by the local dogs and the remains floating in the creek the next time they came to stay. Thanks again guys, we thoroughly enjoyed our own little  'holiday' at Mahia Beach.

Next stop Gisborne, but not before a quick photo of the historic Nuhaka Store, now looking a little worse for wear but still serving the locals and passing traffic. Mum would shop here when we were on holiday, we'd also stop for icecreams on our way back to Mahia Beach...

...after a swim at the Morere Hot Springs...

...which certainly looked a lot different to the days when we visited. Well the entrance does anyway. The pools, or what I saw of them still looked familiar.

In my late teens when I visited Mahia with friends, we used to have a hot swim and then while away an afternoon (or two) with a drink & snacks in the Garden Bar at the Morere Hotel. It's where I was introduced to 'Fluffy Ducks' & 'Black Russians', crazy cocktails from the late '70s. Sadly the pub is no longer, it burnt down in a spectacular blaze in 1992 and all that's left of that memory is an overgrown gravel patch.

Mahia Peninsula- A Trip Down Memory Lane; Part 1

Catch-up

I think I'll give up trying to catch-up. I just about got there a couple of weeks ago and then, well everything turned to custard (if custard is the right term for travelling and exploring) and now I'm back where I was, half a dozen blogs behind again. So just pretend we've just left Mahia and you have no idea where the heck we are at the moment (Te Araroa, East Cape if you're wondering).

I've been looking forward to visiting Mahia for a very long time. Mahia Peninsula forms the top curve of Hawke Bay and is a popular holiday playground for many that live in Hawkes Bay. Mahia was our family's regular summer holiday destination when I was a child. 

Nothing signifies Mahia Beach and carefree summer holidays to me more than the white-cliffed headland of Mokotahi which dominates the eastern side of Blue Bay and is right beside Mahia Beach.

We were very lucky and extremely grateful to be able to park on the front lawn of a bach that belongs to some very good friends. 'Stay as long as you like' they said, 'plug into the power, use the washing machine' they said. So we did and it was heaven for a whole 10 days. 

We arrived in the rain storm that sent us packing from Lake Waikaremoana and as you can see David, with limited visibility, did a magnificent job of backing the rig over the wonky wooden bridge and angling it so the slide-out had room. And that is where we stayed for the duration. 

A wary Scared Kingfisher/Kotare fished in the creek in front of the van each day

We had a good view of Mokotahi except for the poles and wires of civilization. I did head to the beach a few times to catch the sunset but as per Murphy's Law, they weren't the nights for great displays!

Although this fisherman provided me with the perfect subject one evening.

One of the first places I was keen to check out, was the bach our family used to stay in. It was a great surprise to find that it, along with the bunkhouse, was still standing and looking very well looked after.

Here she is circa 1976, that's my brother & sister on the left, a friend, and my aunty and uncle (who are our ages and holidayed with us often) on the right.

Back then there was just scrub and dunes behind and to the side of the bach. Now there are large holiday homes on either side and a whole lot of homes behind. 

Once the weather cleared I made a pilgrimage to a few more familiar places- an exposed and driftwood strewn Taylors Bay which is on the ocean side of Mokotahi. 

A deserted Mahia Beach, the old (and I'd say now historic) red shed bach named Mokotahi which sits on the front row across the road from the boat ramp and beach, and Mahia Beach Store which has had a bad face lift at some stage. 

Mokotahi on a blue sky day- as kids we would climb to the top at least once during the holidays. There's now a public track to the top but I decided Mokotahi must had grown since my youth. It wasn't the going up that worried me, it was the coming down and the agony I'd put my poor kness and toes through.

I have another special connection with Mokotahi. A very friendly bottle-nosed dolphin is named after the headland. Moko, a young dolphin arrived in Blue Bay and made friends and swam with the many humans who came to visit him. He was named Moko by the locals and he stayed nearby for 2-3 years until 2009 when he followed a fishing boat north to Gisborne and then after a few months north again, following another trawler, around East Cape and onto Ohope & Whakatane.

Moko bringing me a gift of seaweed

I became involved with Moko after he arrived in Whakatane, I travelled over from Tauranga several times to visit and swam with him during the months he was there. He again followed a fishing boat to Tauranga where I saw him for one last time before he met his untimely death.

I documented my meetings with Moko and his farewell memorial on a blog 'My Mate Moko'. I have Moko to thank for my 'Two Go Tiki Touring' blog; it's when I started blogging. Click the link above if you'd like to read Moko's blog- don't worry it's (sadly) not too long. Click on February in the right column to start at the beginning and make sure you listen to the songs and speeches in the last entry which is the memorial; they'll break your heart and make you laugh at the same time.

Swimming with Moko

Well that's enough of that, it still makes me sad thinking of poor Moko- gone from the sea but not from our hearts.

My next stop was where the Blue Bay Holiday Park used to be located at Opoutama, the family stayed here a couple of times in the cabins. The holiday park was set in amongst a big plantation of pine trees; the trees have now gone and the area has been partially developed and subdivided off. The sites have only recently been re-sold after the initial developer went belly-up. There's now also a freedom camping area down on the waterfront.

Tucked into the corner of Blue Bay is a rail bridge that crosses a small stream; I remember we used to swim and play in the stream under the bridge when we were little.

I headed south over the hill to Waikokopu Wharf, stopping on the main road where there used to be an old house (a railway house I think), just north of another rail over-bridge and just before the turnoff to the wharf. The house is long gone, just a farm gate and a gravel entrance now, but it's where we stayed on some of our very first visits to Mahia- I remember sleeping in the old cast iron bath when we had too many visitors; lots of blankets to pad the bottom and keep the cold out no doubt. 

That's my grandfather (Dad's dad) setting up a fishing line at the back of the house. I would say this was in the mid 1960s. You can see the same small peak to the left in both the top photo and the old one.

Sadly Waikokopu Wharf is no longer either, it's now just a pile of rocks. Local fishermen used to unload their crayfish catches here, I'm sure we'd often get a few crays from them too.

We used to fish off the wharf regulary; here we are (circa 1967) with our daily catch- that's my two brothers, me in the middle and my sister on the right. 

And here a few years later (1976); my aunty, our dog Susie and my brother.

I couldn't get over how many goats there were around the peninsula, and lots of billy goats too; all over the hills, paddocks, along the roads and old rail lines, everywhere you looked there were goats munching on grass. 

They didn't hang about though, taking off as soon as I stopped to take a photo. 

'Come back, I only want to take your photo!'

Mahanga, 8kms north of Opoutama, and north of the peninsula is another sleepy beachside settlement and one we stayed at a few times too. I wasn't able to locate 'our' bach although there were only a couple of short cul-de-sacs to check out. Either it has been added to or moved off altogether. 

The beach also didn't seem that familiar although the many shells scattered over it did, they tended to gather in the top corner of the beach. We used to collect them to take them home for the garden, especially the small NZ Wheel Shell which looks like it's still gathered to decorate gardens. We also used to walk to Happy Jack's Boat Harbour, which is just around the rocks from Mahanga Beach, in there the shells were a foot deep right across the tiny cove's beach. 

I'm sure we used to walk there over the land as well as around the rocks, I recall a friendly old Maori lady that used to live there. I thought we might be able to find a track to the harbour but it's all private land and fenced off now- Happy Jacks provides a good surf break and I suspect over the years the locals have got fed up with the intrusion. Happy Jacks Road is now flooded by a stream; it looks to have been like that for a few years. We came in from the other end but still had no luck.

To be continued... Part 2