Author Archives: Dearne and Rod

New Zealand is a very small country. While staying at Taupo Bay we met up with another couple from Whangamata who were holidaying in their caravan and two other couples from Taranaki in motorhomes who were both distant relatives on Rod’s mum’s side. 5 o’clockers was very ‘chirpy’.

We headed out of Taupo Bay this morning not quite sure which direction we were going to take. After a bit of a discussion we came to the conclusion that we needed a few groceries and the closest town with a ‘4 Square’ was Kaeo.  Decision made.

With the supplies put away it was ‘where to now?’.  One of the couples last night suggested we should have a look at Tauranga Bay as they had stayed there the night before and thought it was beautiful.  So here we are – parked up in Tauranga Bay, right on the beach.

When we arrived we found the Navy Dive team were here training.  We introduced ourselves and soon had a few of the boys in the van sitting around having a chat. I think Rod has an ulterior motive tho’.  He figures ‘Navy divers mean crayfish, fish etc’. I do note that more liquid refreshment has gone into both refrigerators and the wind is still blowing the wrong way for ‘Wilson’, the fishing kite.

With the Navy boys in town, I am pretty sure we are going to be here until the weekend at least.

We bought tickets the other day to the Kerikeri Ocean and Orchard Wine and Food Festival on Saturday 23 February 2013. Our good friends Steve and Claire are making the journey to the event in their motorhome so if anyone else plans to attend, please give us a call and we can catch up.

Where to from here?  Who knows – we will keep you updated.

We decided to depart Maitai Bay a day earlier than planned for no other reason other than we had done the walks and cycle rides available and the fishing was very average. On our first night there the Bay was host to a school of stingray. I am not sure what they were eating but they were coming within 2 metres of the beach to get it. On the second night we had schools of very small kahawai in the waves. There was nothing that would jump onto the hook.

The weather continues to be stunning. We have had to be quite liberal with the sun screen on this journey. Since our leaving home some eighteen days ago, we have only had one day of very light rain.

Taupo Bay was our next planned stop. Although the distance between Maitai Bay and Taupo Bay is not that far (about 70km), it took us all day to make the journey.  The road around Doubtless Bay is dotted with small seaside villages all worthy of a stop off.  Our stops included Whatuwhiwhi, Tokerau Beach, Taipa, CABLE BAY, Coopers Beach and Mangonui.

The standout for us was MANGONUI. It is a brilliant small harbour town with everything going for it. We visited a local art and craft shop that was owned by a guy from Manchester in the UK. He came here on holiday on 1990, drove into Mangonui and never left. It’s that sort of place. Mangonui is supposed to have the best fish and chip shop in the country. We of course had to sample their fare. The pundits were correct – it was great.

Those of you who know me well are very aware of the incidents that happen to me on my adventures. This journey has been no different. Dearne was instructed to put together a comprehensive first aid kit prior to our leaving. She followed the instruction and to date I am the only one who has used it (consistently). We are always plastering over some type of bodily damage!!

We are now at TAUPO BAY and will probably stay until Thursday. Not sure where to after that but we will enjoy our new spot until then. Catch you all later.

Just a quick update to let you know that we ended up at Maitai Bay on the Karikari Peninsula last night.  We are on a Department of Conservation site and again only about 50 metres from the water.  We are finding the DOC sites really good.  They are generally on the water and with us holding a DOC pass, there is no cost to us when we stay on these sites.

We are thinking of staying here for three or four days as there are heaps of walks, cycling and fishing opportunities on the Peninsula. Rod went for a quick fish last night after we got everything sorted but no luck. He was saying that there was a slight SW wind forecast for today so ‘Wilson’ may get an airing.

We will update the blog with photographs in a couple of days just before we leave.

With the school holidays over and the northern region’s public holidays finished until Easter, there is not much traffic on the road or holiday makers around the normally busy spots.  We are having no problem finding places to park the motorhome.

As we headed south from Tapotupotu Bay yesterday we were not quite sure where we were going to end up for the night. When we arrived at Houhora Heads late yesterday afternoon we were not quite sure if it was going to be it for the night or not.  After a cruise around and finding some great harbour parking spots we decided to stop. The short of it all is that we have liked the area so much, that we are now in our second day here.

We are parked about 50 metres from the water and are in one of the better fishing spots in the region.  While Rod has not done any fishing in the Harbour, he hitched a lift over to Ninety Mile Beach this afternoon with another motorhomer and came home with a great snapper catch. The freezer is looking ‘fish’ healthy again.

We managed to get in a good bike ride this morning.  The area is generally quite flat so it makes for a good opportunity to look around the Harbour by pedal power.  The ride also gave us a chance to pick up a couple of bags of fruit as we passed local roadside stalls.

For more photo’s of our Houhora visit click HERE

Where too from here? Again we are not too sure but tomorrow we may head over to the Karikari Peninsula area. Will let you know. Take care all.

It was an easy drive from Waipapakauri Ramp to the very top of the North Island – Cape Reinga. The road was sealed all the way and there was barely any traffic about.  Our guess is that the local population was attending our ‘unity’ celebrations?.  The northern visit was a ‘first’ for both of us by road albeit Rod spent a bit of time up this way when he was on HMNZS Lachlan in the early 70’s.

He says he is with a more generous crew on this trip!! We did the traditional walk to the lighthouse (pictures HERE to prove it). It was a stunning day so well worth the journey.

Once we had had a look around, we then had to decide ‘where to from here?’. We decided to stay around the area so headed for Tapotupotu Bay. The Bay is a Department of Conservation site and is an absolute stunner.  The beach itself is in a small bay (about 400 metres long), white powder sand, safe surf and good fishing and diving.  There were about 10 or so motorhomes here overnight so it very social. If you ever get up this way and are Self Contained (onboard shower and toilet), it is certainly worth a night or two. Click HERE for a picture.

Our plan tomorrow is uncharted. We will let you know where we end up.

We are a bit late updating the blog as reception here in the North has been either one bar at best or nil. Our two days at the Ramp was a hunker down and relax time as the weather ‘persisted’ down most of the time and the winds were Sou’west at about 20 odd knots.  Not a good couple of days for the bikini or fishing.

My ‘hunter and gatherer’ did his best to add to the freezer with a bit of surf casting but it was all to no avail. The on shore winds and rather large surf were not helping him at all and it was certainly not the weather for ‘Wilson’, our fishing kite. The line would have ended up inland and the only critters in danger would have been rabbits and possums.

But you know Rod – never say die. He managed to find a tuatua bed just up from where we were staying.  As a result of his hunting ability, we had tuatua fritters for dinner last night and we now have enough in the freezer for another couple of meals.

A couple more shots HERE

We have decided to head directly up to Cape Reinga today.  We will update the blog again when we have reception.

The weather has really set in today. It has rained most of the night and is still ‘persisting’. We left Ahipara this morning at about 10am and headed into Kaitaia to stock up. Rod’s biggest job in Kaitaia was to find an oven tray to fit the gas oven on the motorhome.  Why it did not come with one I am not sure.  You guessed it – nothing would fit.  In the end we went to Mitre 10 and purchased a standard oven tray and Rod took it to an engineering workshop and had them cut it to size. A  job well done.

We are now settled at Waipapakauri Ramp for the next two days (Location page is updated).  Waipapakauri Ramp is situated off State Highway 1 and about 6km towards the coast from Waipapakauri itself. We are about 100 metres from Ninety Mile Beach. Weather permitting, we plan to do a late afternoon fish as we are down to our last bag of fish.

All is well with us and the motorhome is performing perfectly.

The change in weather conditions around the Hokianga Harbour today gave rise to a change of plans. We decided to spend the day around the harbour then head further north for our next stop. Consequently we arrived at a little settlement at the bottom of Ninety Mile Beach called Ahipara late this afternoon (location map updated).   It’s 5pm, a bit cloudy but the temperature is still around 27C. Love it! We are here for the night.

We normally have breakfast onboard but we decided on a brunch this morning at the Boatshed Cafe at Rawene. It came highly recommended from friends and did not let us down. It is worth a visit if you are up this way.

On the spur of the moment we decided to catch the vehicle ferry from Rawene to Narrows. It was a 10 minutes journey and cost $40 to take the motorhome, and us, across. If we had driven around the harbour to Narrows it would have taken approximately one hour. It was a good saving on time and diesel.

The trip from Narrows to Ahipara was great. It was all back country roads but through lots of very small settlements.  It gave Dearne an opportunity to fossick in local art and crafty shops on the way. She spent an extremely ‘long time’ at the Kohukohu Craft Centre on the left (payback for the fishing I think!!).  Kohukohu was the most interesting place – a buzzing kauri town in the early 1900’s but now very quiet.

We are heading north tomorrow stopping in at Kaitaia to stock up on a few essentials then heading to Waipapakauri Beach for a couple of days.

If few shots of the journey can be seen HERE

We departed the Kia Iwi Lakes at about 11am this morning and made our way north on Highway 12. Neither of us has ever travelled  north via this route so it has been a day of new territory

One of the standouts for the day was the drive through the Waipoua Forest.  It was very easy to visualise what New Zealand might have looked like some 2000 years ago.  We did a small detour into the forest itself to have lunch at the Waipoua Forest visitors centre.  The information at the centre gave a detailed description of the bush workers life all those years ago. Not for us that’s for sure.

About 10km further up highway 12 we made another stop to visit New Zealand’s most famous kauri tree – Tane Mahuta. According to the experts the tree begun its life about 2000 years ago and currently measures – total height 51.5 metres, trunk height 17.7metres,  total girth 13.8 metres and trunk volume 244.5 cubic metres. A big boy in anyone’s language.

What we did notice as we travelled through the region is that there are still many people involved in the kauri industry in some form or other.

We arrived at the Hokianga Harbour at about 4pm this afternoon. What a stunning view of the harbour you get on driving over the hill onto the Hokianga.  The picture attached does not do it justice.  We decided to call it a day and make a night of it at Opononi.  We are booked into the local motorcamp (about 50 metres from the water) as we need to catch up on a few domestic chores.  We have been freedom camping for most of the last 8 days so things like the washing of clothes go on the back burner.

I also think I just saw Rod getting his surf caster out from the back of the motorhome!!

We intend meandering around the Hokianga for the next couple of days so will keep you up to date.

Our “Location” page has been updated

Again we have been blessed by stunning weather. The Lakes are simply beautiful and an ideal place to kick back and relax.  We were accompanied on this leg of our journey by our good friends Len and Sharon Kilgour from Red Beach in Auckland. Rod has known Len for about 30 years from when they were in the same Ten Pin bowling team in West Auckland. Len and Sharon came along in their caravan and we were able to park up together at the Lakes.

We took a day trip yesterday to a small west coast beach called Omamari. It was about 8km from the Lakes and an ideal place to fish. Rod took his kite fishing gear with us and we were rewarded with a good size kahawai, a snapper and a gurnard. We had the snapper and the gurnard for dinner last night and Rod smoked the kahawai.  The smoked kahawai is now in the freezer awaiting a fish pie bake off.

I have got to admit this life style is wonderful. Sitting around with friends at the end of the day, in the sun or under the awning, having a quiet one or two and discussing where the world is going  wrong, is no better way to relax.

Len and Sharon return home tomorrow and we are heading further north. Right now we are not quite sure where we will stop but maybe around Omapere or Opononi.  If Rod finds another ‘likely beach’ on the way I guess the kite will be sent up to do its job and it may end up an overnighter wherever that may be.

For a couple more shots of the Lakes click HERE

We will update the blog and ‘Location’ page once we reach our destination.