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A coastal hike near Opotiki
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Greymouth, New Zealand
It’s a prodigiously rainy and windy day, as a
huge rainstorm batters the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Terri and I are
huddling indoors at a welcome refuge at Duke's Hostel, a venerable backpacker's joint in Greymouth. It’s a good day to write a blog post, and a good day to be under a solid roof.
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One of the maps that Terri created for my new book during MIQ
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It’s time to catch up on our travels. When last
I wrote, I reported on our fun three-week jaunt through Turkey back in August, 2021. We then flew to Auckland, via lots of covid-related restrictions and
hoops; there was an anxious ten-minute wait in Istanbul airport while Singapore
Airlines check-in staff had a telephone conversation with New Zealand
Immigration to make sure that I was eligible to fly into the country. We
arrived late on the evening of September 4th into a ghostly,
almost-deserted airport, got processed and sorted onto our bus, and taken to
the Rydges Hotel, our home for the next two weeks of Managed Isolation and
Quarantine (MIQ).
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Some of Terri's grandkids
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Those two weeks passed surprisingly pleasantly.
We had a room on the eighth floor, with a view towards Auckland’s Sky Tower,
two enormous king-sized beds and three delicious meals a day delivered to the
room. We were confined indoors except for occasional “exercise” sessions on a
rooftop terrace or along the ramp leading to the underground parking garage; we
weren’t allowed to do anything that might result in us breathing heavily, so
the word “exercise” didn’t seem to have its usual meaning. The weather was
relentlessly cold and rainy, so we weren’t itching to be outdoors, and we
amused ourselves by watching US Open tennis, reading and (in the case of Terri)
working on the hand-drawn maps for my next book, about my Silk Road cycling ride.
After two weeks, we were certified as
disease-free and ready to be released into the community. While we were in
Turkey, New Zealand had had its first serious covid outbreak in over a year,
and so Auckland, the epicentre, was under a partial lockdown. As a result the
North Island was cut in two, and travel from north to south through Auckland
was impossible. We had planned to wait out the chilly months of September and
October somewhere in the north, but instead we picked up Edmund the Elgrand
(our third camping vehicle, after our beloved Stanley and much-used Douglas) at
Terri’s daughter’s farm on the northern outskirts of Auckland, spent a hurried
couple of hours visiting, and then fled south to the liberty of Hamilton. We
spent a week there at the house of Terri’s good friends Ross and Debbie, taking
care of administrative steps like getting the van’s Warrant of Fitness renewed,
getting our first shots of the Pfizer vaccine (we had not been eligible for
vaccinations in Indonesia), buying me a second-hand bicycle, and obtaining a
solar panel and second-hand storage battery to run our fridge/freezer.
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Indiana with the first physical copy of my book that I'd held
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Another delicious dinner with Lilian and John
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Terri with her cousin Phillipa and her family
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We might have lingered longer in Hamilton, but
covid began to leak out of the Auckland cordon into the Hamilton area, so we
fled further to the Tauranga area where we holed up for almost two weeks with
Lilian and John, inveterate globetrotting friends who had visited us in
Tbilisi. They had a guest apartment where we hid out from more cold and rain,
explored the fabulous variety of fruit trees that filled their property (we
left laden with avocadoes and lemons) and worked on fitting out Edmund for the
road. We bought a roof rack and a luggage box to go on it, had the 175-watt
solar panel attached onto the rack, mounted an awning and tent to hang off the
side of the vehicle, and I even put my physics degree to practical use as I
wired up the battery, the solar controller unit, the solar panel and the
interior electrical outlets. (My initial wiring wasn’t really up to snuff, and
I ended up having to redo it a couple of weeks later, but since then it’s
functioned perfectly, which pleases me immensely.) We also rode our bicycles
around, hiked up Mount Maunganui, did pullup bar workouts in playgrounds
(keeping up the routines we had established in Bali) and had late-afternoon
beers and dinners with Lilian and John, recounting stories from the road. (They
are some of the few travellers I’ve met who have been to far more countries
than I have, and their stories of travels in the 1970s were epic.) Importantly
for further travel, we were also able to get vaccinated (something that we had
not been able to do in Indonesia) with our first dose of Pfizer. We also dropped in on more of Terri's friends and family living in and around Tauranga.
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Terri and her cousin Pepper
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Eventually the van was ready to hit the road, and
we started our stately progress down the east coast of the North Island. We
started with a few nights in Ohope, just to the east of Papamoa. It was my
first experience of “freedom camping”, in which towns designate certain areas
for self-contained vehicles (ones with a toilet and a grey-water container) to
stay for free. The Ohope freedom camps were nothing to write home about, with
lots of vehicles crammed into small spaces, but it was a chance for us to test
out our set-up. We discovered soon that my wiring job wasn’t up to snuff, as I
hadn’t quite gotten the connectors from the solar panels to the roof to
complete the circuit; we discovered this when the car battery stopped working and
I started crawling around the circuit with a voltmeter. Once I had the panel
working, we were back in business. We also discovered that rain is a constant
accompaniment to camping in New Zealand!
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| Morgan, steak chef extraordinaire |
From there we drove to Kutarere, a tiny community
between Ohope and Opotiki. There we were lucky to stay with Terri’s cousin
Pepper. We were very glad to have a solid roof over our heads when a torrential
downpour hammered down for two days and flooded Opotoki’s rivers. Pepper was an
amazing host and she and her friend Mason kept us well fed and entertained. We
tried our hands at gathering oysters near Opotiki, and were successful enough
to have two massive oyster feasts. We also received in the post a new solar
controller (I had mangled the previous one in my electrical incompetence) and
this time I was much more careful in connecting everything neatly, with a
crimping tool and lots of tiny ferrules to keep the wire ends neat.) Finally
everything was hunky dory on the roof, and the electrics have remained trouble
free ever since. The new controller also has a Bluetooth connection to our
telephones, so we can check the status of the battery, the solars and the load
circuit in real time, which is an addictive thing!
Eventually we tore ourselves away, via a night
at the oyster beds (which proved to be a very noisy place to camp!) and our
second dose of covid vaccine in Opotiki. We also had an auto electrician
install a circuit to allow us to charge our storage battery from the car engine
when it’s running, something which has been an invaluable boost to the battery
on days when the sun hasn’t shone enough.
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An oyster feast
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Majestic horse near East Cape
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From Opotiki we started driving towards the
East Cape, the big and somewhat remote protrusion in the northeast corner of
the North Island. We stopped in at Omaio, at a freedom camp that we had been
told about, and stayed for almost a week. The campsite is a huge field up above
the beach, and at times we had it almost entirely to ourselves. Even when there
were a few other campers, we all had lots of space to ourselves. It was a
lovely spot, with oysters to be had from the rocky shoreline and great cycling
along the coastal highway. Terri was feeling a bit under the weather from her
second vaccine shot, and this was a perfect spot to rest and recuperate. Most
of our camping neighbours were keen fishermen, and we were given some delicious
snapper as a welcome addition to our food supply. The energetic lady who ran the
local shop kept us entertained with stories, and warned us that we were only
welcome if we’d been vaccinated. She had been vaccinated, and was glad to
report that although she’d been infested with nanobots and turned magnetic as a
result, she’d used Epsom salts to wash them away. We nodded wisely and tried
not to giggle.
From Omaio we made our way further out along
the Cape to lovely Maraehako, a commercial campground with a lovely location in
a secluded cove. We rented kayaks and explored the shoreline, deeply pitted
with caves. That evening, as we were sitting in our tent, we heard the call of
a little blue penguin and went to the shoreline to see one walking along the shore
between brief swims in the sea. It was our first sighting of blue penguins this
trip (although we’d seen them several times on our 2018 trip), and it was
wonderful to see this endearing creature again in the flesh.
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Edmund on the road back from East Cape
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| East Cape lighthouse |
We made it to Te Araroa next, a small community
just west of the East Cape. We drove out to the East Cape itself and climbed up
the hill to the lighthouse that marks the easternmost point in mainland New
Zealand, a beautiful if windswept spot. We liked it so much that the next day
we jumped on our bicycles and rode most of the way back to East Cape, revelling
in the fabulous coastal scenery, although we got caught in rain on the way back
to Te Araroa. From there we drove inland to Te Puia Hot Springs (which were,
sadly, closed) and then south to Tokomaru Bay, the first of a series of coastal
towns that stretch north from Terri’s birthplace of Gisborne. We spent a couple
of days in Tokomaru Bay eating delicious fish and chips, doing workouts at the
local rugby field (the goalposts made a great bar to hang our gymnastic rings
from) and lazing beside the shore. The beach was pretty, although it had a
thick covering of driftwood resulting from the extensive logging operations on
commercial timber plantations all along the East Cape.
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Baby paradise shelducks at Cook's Cove
 | Male paradise shelduck looking protective of his brood
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Lovely Tokomaru Bay
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We moved on to Tolaga Bay, almost a twin of
Tokomaru Bay, where we hiked out to Cook’s Cove (where James Cook anchored back
in 1769), cycled, worked out and ate more fish and chips. It was an idyllic
spot, but we could see bad weather appearing on our weather forecasts, so we
fled to Gisborne to shelter under the roof of Terri’s childhood neighbour
Helen. We ended up spending nearly a week there as the rain just continued to
fall, breaking local precipitation records and flooding low-lying areas of
Gisborne. It was a relief to be indoors, and we had a wonderful time catching
up with Helen, her sister Vicky and their mother Bessie, who told us all sorts
of stories from her childhood, her family history and the childhood of Vicky,
Helen and Terri in the suburbs of Gisborne. Gisborne (which we had visited in
2018) reminds me a lot of my hometown of Thunder Bay. It has an industrial air to it, a commercial port, a feeling of isolation (a lot less in the case of
Gisborne, but psychologically it feels remote from the rest of the North
Island) and a sense that the economic and property boom engulfing the North
Island is leaving Gisborne behind a bit.
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Peaceful Mahia campsite
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| Cycling on the Mahia Peninsula |
We almost didn’t leave Gisborne, not because we
didn’t want to but because our van refused to start. We managed to get it going
in the end and drove to the lovely Mahia Peninsula, where we camped on a
fabulous beach after having to tow the van the final few hundred metres from the
corner store where we had unwisely stopped the engine. The next day we finally
got the car to start after many attempts, contacted a mechanic in nearby Wairoa
and drove to camp nearby. We had a pretty place to stay, although the next
morning we encountered one of the few instances of genuinely unfriendly
behaviour of the trip from a local woman who let her dogs run free; when they
tried to ransack our food supplies we asked her to control her dogs, whereupon
she exploded in a foul-mouthed tirade. Still shaking our heads, we drove to
Terry the mechanic’s place, had the problem diagnosed (our starter motor needed
new carbon brushes) and camped in his backyard. The next day a courier
delivered the necessary part, and by mid-afternoon we were driving away, back
to the Mahia Peninsula to resume our interrupted idyll by the sea.
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| Neat rock patterns on the Mahia Peninsula |
We spent a few days on the Mahia Peninsula,
site of many happy childhood memories for Terri, whose father and mother used
to bring the children there to the beach. It’s a spectacular spot, with a
sheltered beach on one side and a wild coastline open to the ocean on the other
side. We hiked, cycled, collected shellfish and chatted with our neighbours, an
eclectic mix of travellers from all over the country. At the southern tip of
the peninsula a company called Rocket Lab has a launch facility for commercial
satellites; there was a launch scheduled while we were there, and lots of
campers showed up to watch, but it was cancelled due to high winds so we weren’t
able to see the spectacle.
Refreshed by the Mahia Peninsula, we drove
south towards Napier, staying at a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite at Lake Tutira. It was a beautiful spot, but we were raked by gale-force winds
that stirred up the tiny lake’s surface into a roiling mass of whitecaps. We
found a place to camp that was sheltered by a belt of tall trees, but in the
middle of the night we were awoken by a thunderous crack that shook the car. I
got up to find that a massive branch had broken off one of the trees, narrowly
missing our neighbours who were sleeping in a small tent. As I got up, I saw
them frantically packing up and throwing their gear into their car before
driving off; had that branch fallen two metres to one side, they would have
been crushed to death under it. It was a sobering night!
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An angry and malevolent swan, Lake Tutira
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In the morning we awoke to find the wind still
strafing us, but we went for a lovely hike anyway high into the hills. It was a
mixture of lovely native bush, mature pine plantations which creaked ominously
in the gusts, and cutover slash piles from plantations that had been felled
recently. Forestry is never a lovely sight to behold, but in New Zealand, where
the native forests were often felled and burned a century and a half ago, these
stands of alien-looking exotic trees planted in neat rows on land that was sheep
paddocks not long ago, it’s particularly jarring.
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Samson family reunion near Napier
 | Rock album cover shot
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Cliffs along the way to Cape Kidnappers
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Having survived Lake Tutira, we made our way to
Napier via a few short walks in the hills, in tiny pockets of surviving native
forest. At Haumoana freedom camp we rendezvoused with Terri’s sister Karen and
her husband Joshua. We had a great get-together and a feast of grilled chicken
before retiring early in anticipation of the next day. We awoke and made an
earlier start than usual as our schedule was determined by the tide tables. We
spent the day walking along the beach out to Cape Kidnappers, along the sand
left behind by retreating tides, underneath impressive vertical cliffs. It took
about three hours to get to our destination, a huge colony of Australasian
gannets who nest atop the cliffs. We saw them a few years ago west of Auckland,
but this was made more special by the effort required to get there. With a wary
eye on the incoming tides, we retreated the way we had come, marching back past
a smaller gannet colony as well as cormorants, gulls and terns. It was an
exhilarating walk, and we got back to the start long before the tide cut the
track. I went off for a short bike ride once we were back in camp, glad to get
in lots of outdoor activity on the warmest, sunniest day we had experienced
yet.
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Yours truly on the way to Cape Kidnappers
 | A loud dispute in the gannet colony
 | A male gannet bringing a seaweed garland for his mate
 | Terri and a few of her gannet pals
 | The view from the top of Cape Kidnappers
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The sheltering mossy forest on Holdsworth
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From Haumoana, we drove south for several hours
through agricultural land until we reached the foot of the Tararua Range and
Mt. Holdsworth DOC campground. We set up our tent and awning and went for an
exploratory ramble along the river. Back at the car we arranged accommodation
for the following night in a DOC alpine hut up atop the mountains, grilled pork
chops, packed our backpacks and got ready for our first overnight hike of the
trip.
It dawned bright but windy the next day, and we
sweated uphill through the dense forest, our bodies unused to our heavy
backpacks. The higher we got, the more the wind howled, until by the treeline
it was blowing a full gale, almost knocking us off our feet and turning our
backpacks into sails. We persevered to Powell Hut, at about 1050 metres above
sea level, where we sheltered indoors for several hours, unwilling to face the
ferocious winds, lingering over lunch and endless cups of tea. Finally, around
2:30, it became less blustery and we were able to wander, carrying only a
camera bag and some warm clothes, up towards the summit of Mt. Holdsworth. It felt
like a homecoming to be up above the treeline in the tussock grass of the alpine
zone, walking through a dramatic mountain landscape dissected by deep gorges. We
made it to the top of Mt. Holdsworth and partway to the next peak, Jumbo,
before turning back to trot downhill to the warmth of the hut. It was a full
hut that evening, with a diverse group of trampers sharing stories and
experiences. The Tararuas are not too far from Wellington, and a lot of the hikers
came from there, either university students or government employees out for
their first big hike of the year. It was a fun atmosphere, and Terri and I
feasted on pasta carbonara padded out with a few rashers of bacon. The full
moon rose as we headed to bed and lit up our hut room with its pale silvery
glow.
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Atop a breezy Mt. Holdsworth
 | Descending from Mt.Holdsworth
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Castle Rock and its sketchy-looking summit walk
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The sunrise the next morning was spectacular,
setting the sky alight from first light. The winds had returned with a
vengeance, and we were glad to get down into the shelter of the trees as rain
clouds gathered overhead. We threw our packs into the car and drove to Castlepoint,
a pretty seaside village that’s been gentrified with lots of expensive new
baches (summer/weekend cottages). We hiked along the dramatic seashore and up
to Castle Rock, a peak that seemed to loom perfectly vertically above the
shoreline. The path proved to be less alarming than it looked from below, and
the views were sensational. We descended carefully and set up camp in a little
freedom camp on the edge of the dunes.
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Sea lion pup, Cape Palliser
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Putangirua Pinnacles
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We explored the Pinnacles on foot the next day.
They are very picturesque eroded conglomerate, rather like the Badlands of South
Dakota, or the houdous of the French Alps near Guillestre which we
visited last year. It was a decent-sized hike, almost four hours, and got us
salivating about the longer treks we were hoping to do in the South Island. Our
campground neighbours gave us some paua (abalone) which they had gathered,
which tasted absolutely delicious. The fresh seafood and fish from New Zealand’s
oceans really are some of the culinary highlights of travel in this country!The next day was devoted to trying to find one
of New Zealand’s most elusive and cryptic native birds, the matata or
fernbird. We drove to Boggy Pond, one of the few places where they are reliably
seen. Although it was a lovely spot, full of black swans, paradise shelducks, cormorants and tiny baby pied stilts, we had no luck with the fernbirds. We retreated for the last
time to Masterton to have lunch in a city park with Terri’s old army friend
Vivienne, and then headed out to cycle part of the Remutaka Rail Trail. It was
steep for a train line (this section had its own specialized hill-climbing
engines in the 19th century) but made for a spectacular ride. It
felt good to be cycling in nature rather than along the side of a highway for
once!
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A baby pied stilt
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Tuatara, Zealandia
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We coasted downhill from the summit tunnel and then rashly followed
Google Maps’ directions towards a freedom camp. The program saved a few hundred
metres of distance by sending us along a dirt road with a small ford in it. We
discovered that Edmund the Elgrand doesn’t really like fords when we lodged it
firmly in the pebbly riverbed, partially tearing off the rear bumper in the process.
We took off the bicycles from their bike rack at the back and Terri managed to
coax the vehicle up the opposite bank. After all that, we didn’t even end up
staying at the freedom camp since it was apparently abandoned and lived in by a
collection of people who seemed to have substance abuse and anger management
issues. Instead we drove to an idyllic DOC camp a few kilometres away and spent
a peaceful night.
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| Red-fronted parakeet (kakariki), Zealandia |
The next day was our last day of real
exploration on the North Island. We tried to hike along a path marked on our
map app, but the trail soon petered out, apparently abandoned and overgrown.
Instead we drove to the other side of the Remutaka Rail Trail, pulled out the bicycles
and pedalled up the other side of the previous day’s incline. The grade was far
gentler on this side (1% rather than 5%) and almost imperceptible at times. The
scenery was magnificent, and it was a fun morning’s activity. On our way
towards Karen’s house at the Kapiti Coast, we stopped off at another
birdwatching spot, Pauatahanui, again looking for matatas, and again
striking out, although three biology students we met had seen one just ten
minutes earlier. We admitted defeat eventually and drove on to Karen and Joshua’s
house, where we spent our last days on the North Island eating, drinking and
making merry. We did sally forth one sunny day to explore Zealandia, the amazing predator-free bird sanctuary in the very heart of Wellington (we had been there in 2018 as well), but aside from that, we stayed close to home. Joshua fixed up
our mangled bumper, and we visited a couple of Terri’s nieces and nephews who
live nearby. Once again we were lucky to enjoy such warm hospitality, always a
wonderful feeling after weeks of living out of our campervan.In the early hours of November 30th
we embarked on a ferry to take us across the Cook Strait to the South Island,
but that story will have to wait for the next blog post. We spent a total of
almost three months on the North Island, moving at a very leisurely pace and
waiting (mostly in vain) for the cold, blustery spring weather to change into
warm summer. It was pleasant, but we were both keen to get to the big wide-open
spaces of the South Island and some larger-scale outdoor adventures.
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Majestic kaka, Zealandia
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