Monday, April 16, 2018

New Zealand, March 2018: Down the East Coast

Lipah, April 16th

To see a Google Map of this part of the trip, click here.

Once we had headed south from Algies Bay and left the Northland behind after two enjoyable weeks there, Terri and I set off on a tour of the east coast of the North Island.  We had an appointment to keep on March 12th with Terri's sister Karen in Wellington, but other than that we were fairly unconstrained in our schedule.  Since this was the part of New Zealand that Terri had grown up in, there were plenty of family, friends and mementoes of her youth for us to visit, inbetween hikes, scenic detours and birdwatching.

Bar-tailed godwits at Miranda
We passed through Auckland's sprawl with only one stop, buying homebrewing and winemaking equipment at a shop that was billed as Home Growing and Home Brewing.  The guy at the till clearly was a keen home grower and had been sampling his own wares; he was too stoned to be of much help in answering questions.  We bought what we could, then headed east towards the Firth of Thames, through pretty rural villages surrounded by horse farms.  The Firth of Thames is a major bird migration site for waders, some of whom spend the rest of the year in Alaska.  The main birdwatching spot is at Miranda, and the Department of Conservation have done sterling work in setting up bird hides and staffing the place with very knowledgeable volunteer ornithologists.  We spotted the New Zealand endemic the wrybill, the royal spoonbill, the red knot and the bar-tailed godwit.

Thousands of godwits take to the air at Miranda
The godwits are the world champions of long-distance migration; when they leave New Zealand they fly to East Asia for refuelling, then on to Alaska.  Coming back, they fly non-stop across the Pacific, covering 11,500 kilometres in 10 days, for an average speed of nearly 50 km/h.  It's an astonishing feat of endurance for a bird with a mass of only about 400 grams.  Sadly, rampant draining of wetlands for industrial development in China and South Korea is depriving them of their refuelling stop there, and godwit numbers, along with those of many other migratory waders along the East Asian Flyway, are in precipitous decline.  It was heartening to see so many birds at Miranda, and the efforts that New Zealand is undertaking on their behalf; it would be nice if South Korea and China were to put out the same effort.

Terri and her cousin Mark, keen adventure racer and cyclist
From there the grey skies started to open up on us, making the drive through the scenic Karangahake Gorge a bit less picturesque.  It's an old gold mining area, and we were en route to the town of Waihi, where gold is still mined today, to visit Terri's cousin Mark.  We stayed a couple of nights with Mark, whose father Ian was the younger brother of Terri's father Jim.  We had a fun night hearing about Mark's various adventure races, both those that he organizes and others in which he's a participant.  

The next day we headed out on bicycles to ride along with friends of his who were passing nearby as part of the Tour Aotearoa, a bicycle "brevet" (not exactly a race, but like a race) along the 3000-kilometre New Zealand Cycle Trail, a mixture of beaches, back roads, logging roads, old rail lines and single track that links Cape Reinga to Bluff (the entire length of the NZ mainland).  The Tour Aotearoa is a clever marketing event, staged every two years, sending out groups of 100 cyclists at a time from Cape Reinga.  We had breakfast with Mark's two friends at a cafe in Hikutaia, then rode 20 kilometres chatting with them about cycle touring and their experiences so far.  It was great to be back on a bicycle saddle and talking with other keen cycle tourists; Terri is certainly thinking of riding a good chunk of the trail sometime in the next couple of years.  We pedalled back through the Karangahake Gorge, which was much prettier in the sunshine.

Terri, her aunt and uncle and three cousins (and one husband)
The next day we met up with the rest of Mark's siblings along with their mother and father, all of whom live in Waihi.  It was great for me to meet them, and for Terri to get a chance to talk to them outside the context of funerals, which is sadly where they had been meeting over the past few years.  After a long, spirited conversation at a cafe, we bit them a fond farewell and headed off north towards the Coromandel Peninsula, a place dear to New Zealand hearts for its wilderness and its hippy, off-the-grid reputation.  The first port of call was the town of Whangamata, where Terri's parents had moved back in the 1990s so that her father could do more fishing in the ocean.  We found a couple of the houses that her parents had bought and renovated, took a few photos, then drove further north towards the most touristy place we had yet visited, Hot Water Beach.  For the first time in our travels, we entered into the raging torrent of overseas tourists in campers and campervans who wash over New Zealand every austral summer.  The beach has a trickle of geothermally heated water just below the surface of the sand, so if you dig a hole in the right spot, you are rewarded with your own hot spring.  The problem is that with too many people on the beach, all the right spots are taken, so you end up with lineups of hopeful bathers vulturing around, trying out abandoned holes and waiting for others to leave.  The water was pretty hot, but not very deep, as the sand constantly falls into the hole and refills it.  It was kind of fun, but not nearly as satisfying as I have had in Japan, on places like Shikine Island south of Tokyo.

Cathedral cove on the Coromandel
From there the tourist trail runs a bit further north along the rugged coast to Cathedral Cove, or rather to its parking lot, inconveniently located several kilometres from the trailhead, presumably as a means of forcing people onto overpriced shuttle buses.  We skipped the buses and walked briskly, racing the 6:30 closing time for the parking lot, out over the headlands to the cove.  It was definitely photogenic, but the grey skies robbed the rock faces of their colours.  We walked back along the beach trail into town, beating the deadline by half an hour, and then drove off to figure out where to spend the night.  We ended up opting for a DoC campsite on the other shore of the peninsula at the foot of the hike to the Pinnacles.  After a stop for fish and chips, we drove over a sinuous mountain road through dense fog, a white-knuckle experience amplified by passing the site of a spectacular multi-car accident.  When we finally arrived at the campsite, we found signs announcing that the Pinnacles track was closed due to storm damage, and our campsite looked very wet and unappealing in the continuing rain.  We ended up bedding down on our air mattresses under the shelter of the roof of the closed information centre.  It was a cozy, dry place, but no sooner had we fallen asleep than a carful of drunks arrived, car stereo blaring and loud voices slurring imprecations.  We stayed out of sight, hopeful that it wasn't a modern-day incarnation of Jake the Muss and his friends from Once Were Warriors, and they drove off soon afterwards.

New Zealand dotterel on the shore at Matarangi 
It was still raining the next morning, so we packed up the car and headed into the regional centre of Thames for breakfast and then further up the west coast of the peninsula.  The road was under heavy reconstruction after storm damage from a January cyclone, but the scenery was very pretty.  We ended up near the northern end of the peninsula in Coromandel Town, a hippy centre set in the midst of postcard-perfect sheep farms, then headed south along the east coast of the peninsula in search of a rare endemic bird species, the New Zealand dotterel.  In the small, pretty town of Matarangi we parked and walked along the wild, deserted, wave-tossed beach for a long way Terri spotted a dotterel in the distance.  We stood and watched through binoculars as it slowly worked its way along the sand, then realized that there was another one further back, and then two fluffy chicks.  It was heartening to see a fairly endangered bird fighting for survival against the odds and producing offspring.  The first dotterel eventually approached close enough to snap a few photos, and we strolled back along the sand pleased with our detour.

The view from the top of Mount Maunganui
From there we put our foot down and drove south to the once-small town of Omokoroa, part of the booming suburban sprawl of the Bay of Plenty, centred around Tauranga.  Another of Terri's father's siblings, her Auntie Lois, lived there in a farmhouse with her husband Phil.  On three sides, their hilltop farmland is now surrounded by suburbs, warehouses and construction sites, but they still have a magical view out over the water.  We arrived to find Phil chasing down sheep.  Their daughter Phillipa lives right next door with her Canadian husband John and their three children, two of them very keen horsewomen.  We would make Auntie Lois' welcoming home our base over the next few days of social visits, starting with a delicious stew that first night.

Uncle Phil, Terri and Auntie Lois


Terri and her younger brother Trevor
March the 3rd found us busy socializing.  First up was Terri's younger brother Trevor, whom we met for a coffee and a catch-up.  Then a long chat with Odette, Terri's friend from her Japan days.  We got in some exercise with a brisk walk up Mount Maunganui, a peak that looms over Tauranga Harbour, before one more social call on a friend from Terri's military days, Mandy, and her husband Len, recently back from a couple of years of cycling based at the foot of the legendary Mont Ventoux in Bedoin.  The day finished with an evening of socializing with Philippa and John and their children, featuring some of the daughters' wonderful wildlife and horse-themed paintings and even me on the piano.
John, Philippa, their three children and Terri

Playing with my macro lens to look at fungi
The following day we fled from social engagements and went for a long trek in the hills inland from the coast.  We tramped for four and a half hours through lovely native bush on the Lindemann Road track.  It felt good to have a long walk after lots of sitting in cars and on sofas, and we even finally had brilliant sunshine to do it in.  We went through some family history and old photographs that evening with Aunt Lois and Uncle Phil, hearing stories of Terri's father and the other siblings, and of the colourful founder of Omokoroa, a retired minister of independent means from Tasmania who was a direct ancestor of Uncle Phil.

Rob Veale and I doing some product placement for their place
March 5th found us back at the foot of Mount Maunganui, catching up with Jo and Rob Veale, friends of Terri whom we had last seen in Livingstone, Zambia a year and a half ago when they were volunteering at Terri's pre-school and elementary school project, the Olive Tree Learning Centre.  They have settled back into New Zealand life, with Jo running a big backpacker's hostel close to the beach in Mount Maunganui.  We met her and Rob there, and escaped the hustle and bustle of the hostel to grab a quick coffee across the street with Jo.  It was strange to see familiar people in completely new surroundings.  Mount Maunganui is very gentrified and affluent, with soaring property prices and lots of new residents and foreign tourists drawn to its surf beaches, while just inland is the centre of NZ's booming kiwi fruit and avocado industry.  It's a very pretty place, but rather too bustling and glitzy for our tastes.

Pretty Lake Okataina, near Rotorua
Steven, Toni and Terri at a joyful reunion in Rotorua
From there we drove inland an hour to Rotorua, famous for its thermal hot springs.  I had been to them before, as had Terri, so we opted instead for a hike around gorgeous Lake Okataina, where we had the trail entirely to ourselves under sunny skies.  The forest was impressive native bush, but we had little luck spotting endemic bird species; there must not have been enough effort put into trapping the local possums and stoats.  Afterwards we drove to the house of yet another member of Terri's extended and welcoming family, her cousin Steven and his wife Toni.  We ate a lavish barbecue and drank lots (too much, perhaps) fine Central Otago pinot noir wine while catching up on more family stories and the rally car driving exploits of their son Sloan, about to head to Finland to pursue his passion.
Rotorua redwoods

Redwood bark, Rotorua
We set off slightly bleary-eyed the next morning, but a hike through the redwood forest of Rotorua cleared our heads and lifted our spirits.  They are, of course, an exotic tree, introduced from California, but their majestic size made for an air of solemn sanctity, broken only by a party of remarkably loud Korean tourists whom we quickly left behind.  From there it was a long day of driving in the direction of Gisborne, Terri's childhood hometown.  We drove through the long and very pretty Waioueke Gorge, and when we found a perfectly idyllic DoC campsite at Mangonuku, well off the road and beside a rushing river, we decided to call it quits early and treat ourselves to a rather brisk swim and a lazy late afternoon of reading and juggling.

March 7th saw us get up and have a quick hike, interrupted by heavy storm damage to the trail, then complete the journey to Gisborne, where we undertook a trip down memory lane.  Terri spent the first 17 years of her life in that city, and we visited three of the four houses where she lived over that period (the fourth was demolished and rebuilt some years ago).  It had been almost thirty years since Terri's last visit, and although very little had changed, it was still hard to find some of the houses.  Gisborne is a bit like a Kiwi version of my hometown, Thunder Bay:  a bit isolated and out of the way, very blue-collar, and not participating in the population growth and housing boom engulfing much of the rest of the country.  We met up with Terri's next door neighbours for the first 10 years of her life, and caught up with the intervening decades that afternoon.  Vicky, the older sister, and her husband have a wonderful older hilltop house surrounded by aviaries of exotic birds, and it was an atmospheric place to stay.
The house in Gisborne where Terri spent her first decade

Terri reunited with her childhood next-door neighbours
Vicky's hilltop house in Gisborne
Pouawa Beach
The next day we went for a drive along the beaches stretching north of town, getting as far as Tolaga Bay.  We parked the car and had a very pleasant ramble over the headlands and into Cook's Cove, a sheltered inlet where Captain James Cook visited on the first British exploration of New Zealand.  We drove back to Gisborne and had a wonderful evening of fine food, wondrous wine and convivial conversation with Helen and her partner at his beach house.  We were glad to be sleeping indoors that night, as an apocalyptic thunderstorm hammered Gisborne overnight.

Cooks Cove, near Tolaga Bay
That rain played havoc with our onward travels the next day, and we only made it as far as Wairoa, after a long soak in the hot springs at Morere and a quick poke around the wind-lashed Mahia Peninsula en route.  The rain was torrential and made for alarming driving, and it felt good to relax and sleep in an AirBnB room instead of pushing on.

March 10th dawned grey but not actually raining, and we spent much of the day driving south towards the town of Masterton, via a country fair just outside the city of Napier.  The skies cleared gradually, and we entered Masterton under brilliant sunshine.  We stayed with another old friend of Terri's from university days, Vivienne, and had a wonderful evening of food, conversation and (for the benefit of Vivienne's high school son Liam) magic tricks and math puzzles.

Looking out at Kapiti Island from the coastal trail
March 11th found us hiking along a spectacular coastal walkway along the Kapiti Coast, just north of Wellington.  It's a fairly new track and up to the high standards we had come to expect, with hundreds of stairs up the steeper sections and a few swaying suspension bridges.  We were high up above the traffic of the main north-south highway, and had sweeping views out to sea to Kapiti Island, and south to the shores of the South Island.  It was a really beautiful place to get in a little exercise.  We camped that night in a Wellington Regional Park, Battle Hill, where we were one of only 4 camping groups in a huge campsite.  I was impressed throughout our stay with the general quality of DoC and regional park campsites:  well situated, with good, clean facilities and reasonable prices.
A bridge on the Kapiti Coast Trail

The view from Battle Hill
The next morning we got up, packed up and went for a hike to the top of Battle Hill, a key site in the British conquest of New Zealand.  The British defeat of the Maori chief Te Rangihaeata opened the Wellington area to British conquest and settlement.  The view from the top, over a sheep farm, pine plantations and a distant motorway construction site, emphasize how much the landscape has changed since 1846 under British settlement.  We drove out towards Upper Hutt with a stop in Porirua for a stroll along a boardwalk through a bird-filled marsh.  

The Norris clan welcomes Aunt Terri and a Canadian interloper 
Upper Hutt is where Terri's sister Karen and her husband Joshua live, along with three of their five adult children.  A fourth, Luke, was visiting from his home in Germany, and was leaving the next day, so we had timed our arrival so that I could meet four of Terri's five nieces and nephews in one place.  (The fifth lives on the South Island.)  It was great to meet the Norris clan after having heard so much about them over the years.  




A charismatic tui with his stylish ruff
Back from the brink:  a takahe at Zealandia
We visited two of the best sights in Wellington during our stay in Upper Hutt. We visited Zealandia, another "mainland island" predator-free sanctuary on a valley just above the central business district of Wellington.  It's been fenced off, and possums, stoats and rats have been exterminated from the entire valley.  As a result, it's a vision of what much of New Zealand could look and sound like if the ambitious Predator-Free 2050 plan comes to fruition.  We loved Zealandia, and spotted many of the native bird species that we had been reading about in our bird guide.  My favourite was the takahe, a bird regarded as extinct from 1898 until their rediscovery in 1948 in the remote mountains of the southwest South Island.  They are still extremely rare, with a population of about 300.  They have been introduced to various predator-free offshore islands and mainland reserves, and Zealandia has four of them.  They are massive, chunky birds with heavy beaks and powerful legs, and it brought a lump to my throat to see a creature that so very nearly went the way of the dodo.  
A kaka at Zealandia

A North Island saddleback at Zealandia
Takahe were only one of the star attractions, though.  We also saw the north island saddleback, the kaka (an endemic parrot, very comical in its antics) and the kakariki, a small parakeet which we saw for a few fleeting seconds.  On our way out, we also saw some tuatara, a strange lizard-like creature that seems to be a holdover from the age of the dinosaurs.  We walked out of Zealandia mightily impressed and heartened by the conservation efforts we had seen there, as well as in so many other spots in the country.  If only other countries would do as much, the natural world would be a lot better off.

A kakariki (red-crowned parakeet) at Zealandia
The prehistoric tuatara at Zealandia
The following day we went into downtown Wellington again, this time with Karen and Joshua, to visit the wonderful National Museum and to stroll around the harbour area.  The museum was outstanding, with a moving exhibit on the New Zealand experience at Gallipoli, as well as a superb natural history section.  There was even the only colossal squid specimen on display anywhere in the world.  
Joshua, Karen and Terri in stylish Wellington Harbour

Inbetween these touristy things, we had lots of chances for Terri to catch up with her sister, and for me to talk to various members of the family.  It was a wonderful few days, but eventually, on March 15th, we had to bid a reluctant farewell to the Norrises and start driving north for the final leg of our trip, up the west side of the North Island.  The east coast had been great fun, with the biggest highlight being all the hospitality offered us by Terri's huge cast of family and friends all along our route.

Sunset over Upper Hutt

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