We reached Hawkes Bay, and drove to the headland beyond Napier. When Cook was moored here, Maori traders noticed two Tahitian interpreters onboard, and believing them held against their will, ‘rescued one’ who promptly returned to the ship, and Cook then named the point Cape Kidnappers. We took a tractor ride down the beach with Gannet Beach Adventures, which was great fun and saved a long walk.
The cliffs show signs of all the geological activity with bands of different rocks, at different angles and with two very noticeable faults.
The Cape is home to a huge colony of gannets who nest here each year and we climbed up from the beach to the cliff top plateau to see them. The birds are black and naked when born, then grow snowy down which later is replaced with grey speckled feathers which they keep until their striking adult plumage with a gold coloured head and black trimmed wings and tail. They mate for life, living to around 25 and as one sits on the nest, the other goes for food, with a touching reunion ceremony each time they return. At four months old, they make a once in a lifetime flight 3000km to Australia, where they stay for a couple of years before returning to mate, however only 25% complete this feat safely.
Hawke’s Bay is also renowned for its wine, and as we drove back we passed Clearview Winery where we picked up a bottle of Cape Kidnappers Merlot to try.
We spent the night at the Clifton Road Reserve, right beside the sea, listening to the huge waves breaking on the shingle beach.
The sunrise was stunning, and motivated I had a birthday paddle … with all the foam it was like paddling in champagne!
We left the Kauri Coast and had some 500km to our next destination, Hawke’s Bay. This took us across the centre of the North Island where we had done our two-week loop with Joanna, so we had already visited everything we were planning to see.
If we hadn’t needed to slow up for the piggies … on their way to market perhaps … we wouldn’t have missed the ferry … never mind, just another opportunity for a cappuccino!
Onwards and northwards we went, over our very own bridge …
We set off from Paihia on our boat trip round the Bay of Islands and soon came across a pod of dolphins swimming back and forwards, in and out of the water. We had seen dolphins in Jervis Bay, but seeing them again here was a delight, especially as they seemed more playful, although just as hard to photograph!
There aren’t many places that have their public toilets as their claim to fame, but Kawakawa is just that place! These works of art were created by Freidensreich Hundertwasser an Austrian painter, architect, ecologist and philosopher who made Kawakawa his home from 1975 till his death in 2001 where he realised his dream of living close to nature. He was largely self-sufficient using solar panels, a water wheel and biological water purification. The loos were his final commission, incorporating broken tiles, glass bottles and found objects into the design in a style reminiscent of Gaudi.
We spent the rest of our day on a longer than expected drive to Whangarei so we can take our campervan to the menders. We have a leak in the bathroom, a water heater that isn’t heating and a kitchen drawer that we cannot shut as the latch has broken. Fortunately Wharengi is on our route and they can fit us in first thing in the morning, so we’ve booked into a holiday park in town, convenient but not the most picturesque, although there was a quirky camper!
We dropped Joanna off at Auckland airport, a little sad, but all of us with more adventures ahead. We returned to Wilderness to swap our larger 4-berth campervan for a smaller 2-berth model and had to squeeze all our stuff into smaller storage areas, but everything fitted fine, then we set off through Auckland, over the harbour bridge and North.
We arrived in Waitomo in time for a delicious lunch at Huhu, a place we heard about while soaking in a hot pool a few days earlier. We shared several dishes including a roasted cauliflower salad with humus and little risotto balls with tomato sauce and looked out over the hills from the balcony.
In the morning, we could see our destination through the window … more volcanos … Mount Ruapehu on the left, Mount Ngauruhoe (aka Mount Doom) in the middle, and Mount Tongariro, smoking, on the right.
The path crossed rocky scrub and heather and we were looking forward to good views of Mount Ngauruhoe, otherwise famous as Mount Doom from Lord the Rings, but cloud obscured the summit throughout.
Off Travelling Together 