Teak Decks and the Monitor Windvane
Date: Saturday, March 31, 2007
Weather Today: Warm with Clear Blue Skies
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

It was another beautiful day today, so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and drill some holes in our boat. Well, actually we didn’t drill holes but we did take out the wooden pegs in the teak deck that needed to be replaced. Mark started on the starboard side of the boat and will continue on the port side tomorrow, whether permitting. When you have a teck deck, from time to time you have to pull out the old pegs, drill deeper holes for new pegs and then put in new screws and pegs. Mark had already put a number of the new screws in when our neighbor Bob on White Swan suggested that he use caulk when putting in the screws. Duh! Why didn’t we know that? So Mark took out the screws he had put in and started again using the caulk. We put varnish in the hole when we put the pegs in and had always thought that was enough to seal things, but Bob and Dianna just finished redoing their teak deck and had done their research. Thank goodness for knowledgeable neighbors.

I spent most of my day polishing the stainless Monitor windvane. It had to be taken off the stern of the boat for repairs and this is the perfect time to get rid of all those rust spots. This is the device that steers the boat using the wind and we will be reinstalling it when we are out of the water. After I worked on this for a couple of hours, Mark returned from the marina store with a new product, at least new to us. It is called “Grunt Emer Gel” and promises to restore and clean metal, fabric, wood, fiberglass, gelcoat, lacquer, and enamel, and it promises to do this by just brushing or wiping it on, waiting a few minutes, and then rinsing it off. I can’t wait to try this one. Sure hope it does just half of what it claims. Of course, there are no ingredients listed on the container, so even if it does work, I’ll never know the magic formula.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s log that Scott and Pam of Starship returned from a trip to Australia late yesterday. Scott and Pam are the legally blind couple sailing around the world that I mentioned in logs when we first arrived in Whangarei. We were delighted to share with them a March 2007 Sail magazine that mentions them in the Cruiser’s Update section. When the Kanegsbergs flew home to the US they left behind their most recent sailing magazines that they had brought with them. We also found a center-fold picture in Sail magazine from March 2007 featuring a boat we are familiar with, Sensei. The picture was from the Baha Haha race that they participated in before heading across the Pacific. They are up in Opua, but Tim and Cynthia on Arctic Fox are going to see them next week, so we will send the magazine with them. When you are out here, you don’t get those sailing magazines, so the few that Alan and Helaine left are getting a good workout.

I’m writing this log early as we are going to the community outdoor film tonight. The feature film is “Happy Feet” and I’ve decided I just have to see it, even if I do have to walk home late at night. I’ll let you know tomorrow if it was worth it.

070402 Web Pics–Working on Windbird

A Beautiful Fall Day in Whangarei
Date: Friday, March 30, 2007
Weather Today: Warm with Clear Blue Skies
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

It continued to rain during the night, but at some point it slacked off and by morning we awoke to the clearest blue skies imaginable. The blue skies and sunshine were certainly welcome after two days of solid rain. I spent the first part of the morning talking via Skype on the computer to my sister Patsy and her husband Joe, and my brother Dickie and his wife Conda. We hooked up our webcam so they could see us, but they are not yet brave enough to have a camera on their end. It’s fantastic to be able to talk to family back home and it is even more fanstastic that it is absolutely free. My brother and sister were together watching WVU play Clemson. In New Zealand, rugby and cricket rule, not basketball, so that is not something we see here.

Mark rode his bicycle into town today to pick up the spare motor we had ordered months ago for our auto pilot and to go to the post office to mail some things back home. It was our auto pilot that failed when we were attempting to leave Tonga. We were successful in getting a new motor sent to us there from New Zealand, but they did not have a second motor to send us that we could use as a backup. They ordered that for us, but when it came in we were in the US and they sent it back. We had to reorder when we came back in February, so we now have the backup motor ready to go in case of another failure. I spent the day continuing to organize things in the boat. I found items that could be vacuum-packed and stored away, so we got out the FoodSaver and did the necessary vacuum packing. This method assures that books won’t get damp when stored away and metal items won’t rust. We love it and use it often. It took most of the afternoon to get things packed away and change our spreadsheets to reflect the new location for certain items. By late afternoon, we were ready to get out and enjoy the beautiful day before it ended. We walked over to the Town Basin and visited with Judy and Roger of Hanoah (from Maine) and Arnie of Jade (from Hong Kong). I talked with Roger about our plans/non-plans for this next season and Mark talked with Arnie about the work we have to do while we are out of the water. We then borrowed the Town Basin dinghy and rowed out to see Artic Fox. We wanted to inspect their hull painting job and assess whether or not we might want to paint our fiberglass topsides when we are out of the water in a week or so. We had heard that Arctic Fox had used the New Zealand paint that promises that anyone can do a professional paint job, so we wanted to see the results. Their boat looks great, but we are still unsure that we want to do this.

Tonight and tomorrow night are the last two nights of a month long festival here in Whangarei. We were not here for most of the festivities, but they have put up a drive-in movie type screen and are showing movies outside tonight and tomorrow night. Since we had walked into town once today, we decided not to walk back for tonight’s move, “The Fastest Indian,” but we might go in tomorrow night to see “Happy Feet.” In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ll have to make it in to see that one. I just can’t resist penguins.

Note About Our Logs and Photos: During our month of New Zealand travels, we were struggling to keep our logs posted each day. We thought we had been successful, but when we got an email today from Alan and Helaine saying that many of our logs were not on the website, we couldn’t figure out why. On our computers, we could see all the logs, but then we are the website administrators. We finally discovered that any log that we have edited wasn’t showing up for others as these logs were marked as private. We have gone back and marked all of those as published logs, so hopefully there should now be a log for each day of the past month. There are also pictures with each log during our land trek. Just click on the one picture displayed at the end of each log and the total photo gallery for that day will come up. We apologize for the missing logs that should now magically reappear. We are still learning about this whole website administration thing.

It’s Still Raining
Date: Thursday, March 29, 2007
Weather Today: Where’s the ark?
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

We have had an unbelievable amount of rain here in the past 36 hours. The marina bathrooms are flooded, some streets in town are underwater, and the road to the airport is closed due to flooding. Since we have not been off the dock since an early trip to the marina showers this morning, we are not sure what other problems there might be. The marina owner, Ray, came by mid-afternoon to tell us that we would have to use our head on the boat since everything on land was flooded. Then Beth and Ken of Eagles Wings reported the road problems when they returned from a trip into town. Actually we are enjoying the excuse to slow down and chip slowly away at small jobs that need to be done aboard Windbird. I’m not a lover of rain, but I really did need a good excuse to slow down and the rain has given me that chance.

Mark’s job for the day was equalizing the batteries. We have six 112 amp-hour 12 volt batteries that provide the power for everything on this boat and today was the day to equalize them. This is the first chance we have had to do this since leaving Boston as equalizing requires plugging into shore power if you don’t have a generator. Well, we don’t have a generator and we haven’t been on a dock since Boston, so today was the day. Shore power here is 220 volts, but our boat is wired for 110 volts as is the standard in the US. So getting shore power meant using a transformer which we had to borrow from another boat. All of the available transformers were taken when we arrived in December, so we have been using a little trickle-charger to help keep things running. We also have our solar panels, but there has been no sun this week! Now, what is equalizing? Basically it is running a high voltage charge through your batteries causing them to get so hot that some of the sulfate that has built up on the plates dissolves back into the battery acid. This frees the plates so that they can take a better charge. Probably more than you wanted to know about batteries, but there you have it.

My job today was putting together a photo album “booklet” of our New Zealand travels for our grandson Sam. Grandmothers have to do these things you know. I also called Sam’s other grandparents to check in with them and talked to my good friend Linda Stuart and her son Garrett back in Concord, New Hampshire. Little by little, I’m answering emails that we received while traveling and I am getting the things we brought back from the US and things we collected on our land trip around New Zealand put away–new books, photographs, travel brochures, etc. On a boat, every little thing must have a home and it takes time to make sure every little thing is in its place.

>From Whangarei to Whanga’rain’
Date: Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Weather Today: Rain and More Rain
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

I think our friend Dianna on White Swan coined the phrase Whangarain back in December. We were back in the States for the holidays and she was emailing us updates on Windbird. We were having beautiful weather in New England, but she was having rain and more rain here in Whangarei. Well, the rain is back. Sprinkles have left us and we are now having honest to goodness Whangarain. We are supposed to get 4 inches in the next 24 hours and some people are saying that the bad weather is going to be with us for another whole week. At least it is a warm rain, but it does make getting out and about a little difficult. We no longer have the rental van, so we are walking or biking everywhere or nowhere as we did today. We made it up the ramp for the cruiser share meeting at 2:00 and the rain cooperated by not pouring and blowing while we were meeting in the covered barbeque area. We had a great turn out and made some progress, but looking at charts in this weather was a little difficult. We combined our resources and are copying those things that we can to share. On Monday of next week we will look at charts again.

As we gathered our resources for the next season for today’s meeting we found we are better off in terms of charts then we thought, but we are definitely crusing guide deficient. When one of the other cruisers looked at our charts they asked us if we had hit the lottery. These charts are SO expensive here in New Zealand, but we explained that the charts were bought before we started crusing. That was when we were working and had a steady income. There will be no more of these beautiful charts for us. We are now on a cruising budget and we will have to “beg, borrow, and copy” what we can from now on. We are very thankful that for Christmas, our son Justin got us the Lonely Planet guides to Fiji and New Caledonia/Vanuatu. These won’t get us into the harbors, but they will serve us well once we arrive. In the absense of good cruising guides, we are sure glad to have these. I just finished tabbing the various sections of those guides. I was somewhat familiar with some of the names of the Fiji islands, but I have never heard of any of the Vanuatu or New Caledonia islands. Much to learn. And we will still need some sort of cruising guides to get us into harbor. We have a little cruising guide for Fiji, but we don’t have the similar guides for New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Today we found out that there is a Moorings guide for Fiji that we didn’t know about and there is a wonderful crusing guide for New Caledonia but it costs $105NZ. I think we will have to make it to New Caledonia without that one.

There’s not much else to report today. Mark spent the day on his computer updating our finances or lack there of. I spent my day continuing to update our photo files. I am still working on naming photos of New Zealand when we first arrived plus all of the pictures we took while visiting at home in the US. Maybe tomorrow we will start facing the boat work that needs to be done. But for now, we’ll pretend that it is not there and enjoy these slower-paced rainy days.

Boats On the Move
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Periods of Sprinkles–Again
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

The really good news is that our grandbaby Sam had a great day yesterday. On Sunday night, he actually slept through the night and awoke at 5:30 am with a smile on his face. He then continued to have a good day. This could just be a one of a kind day, or possibly Sam is getting old enough to figure things out. Let’s hope it is the latter and that there will be many more of these days in the near future.

Here in the marina, today was a day of movement. Our next door neighbors, Ranger, left midday to head to the fuel dock. From there they were pulled into the sling and then lifted out of the water. They had to wait while White Swam was put back into the water. It is obvious that everyone is getting ready for the trip north and that in the next couple of weeks here we will see boats going on land and back into the water daily. White Swan is now our new neighbor and Ranger, our old neighbor, is up on the hard. We will probably haul out just after Easter and be ready to go by mid to late April. Busy times ahead.

We got an email from Alan and Helaine letting us know that they made it back home safely. We hope they are enjoying their memories of our adventures as much as we are. Today we basically worked on organizational chores and then went to Reva’s for dinner with our friends Beth and Ken of Eagle’s Wings. They got back from their South Island travels yesterday and we got a chance to compare our trips during dinner tonight. Tomorrow is the crusier “Share” meeting when we all get together and share whatever information we have in terms of charts and books for this next cruising season. This meeting should get us all motivated for the months of cruising ahead.

070327 Web Pics–Boats On The Move

Thinking of Kids
Date: Monday, March 26, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Periods of Sprinkles
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

We are back home on Windbird now and immediately our thoughts turned to our kids. Heather, Jed, and Sam and still trying to find a rhythm that works for them. That beautiful grandson of ours is 65 days old today. We last saw him on Day 28 and he has really changed in the intervening five weeks. He is a little chub weighing in at over twelve pounds, but he is a demanding baby and is driving his parents crazy. We talked via Skype today and got to see Sam sleeping in the sling that wraps him next to his momma. He is really a cutie. Hopefully he will decide on some sort of schedule soon and give mommy and daddy a little relief. I’ve included a few pictures of him in the first week of his third month at the end of the log. We didn’t talk to Justin today, but we have been communicating back and forth via email as he manages our website and helps us when we have problems. We are also enjoying checking in on his blog on the web and seeing the pictures of him and of Jo in their new apartment in Venice, California. I’ve also included a few pictures of them and of Freckles with this log. Soon our thoughts must turn to planning for our departure from New Zealand, but for now we are just enjoying being home and thinking of our kids.

We have been away from Windbird for over three months and have been so busy for all of that time that we have hardly thought about the upcoming cruising season. Many of the boats here have already been out of the water to do the necessary bottom painting and are getting ready to go. With all of the boat activity now that we are back here, it is going to be harder and harder to think of anything else. Marie on Ranger, our next door neighbor, has arranged a sharing session on Wednesday. We will all bring our charts and cruising guides that we have for the western Pacific to share. Today Camdeboo headed out, and before long many boats will be heading north. Tomorrow we will get organized and figure out exactly what we need to do and after the meeting on Wednesday, we will get serious about planning for a new season.

070326 Web Pics–Kid Update

Full Circle–To Auckland and Back to Whangarei
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Periods of Sprinkles
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

I’m writing this log as Mark and I drive home to Whangarei from Auckland. We just dropped Alan and Helaine off at the Manukau Top 10 near the Auckland Airport. They fly out of Auckland tomorrow morning at 6 am, go to Melbourne, Australia for a two-hour layover, and then on to Los Angeles. Since they gain a day when they cross the International Dateline, they will actually be at home by tomorrow evening even though the trip will take them 36 hours. After a month of traveling together, goodbyes verged on tears with lots of thank you’s and hugs. All four of us have much to be thankful for as we had fantastic weather, no car problems, and no health problems. We had a wonderful month of traveling together and seeing so much of this dramatically beautiful country. Alan and I are both a year older after our March birthdays, and of course, we are both years wiser. In the 7,000 kilometers, more than 4,000 miles, that we have driven we learned so many new things. Helaine and I studied the NZ bird book I had purchased just after we arrived here and we have seen almost every bird in it. I also have a NZ nature guide and we used that to identify trees, ferns, scrubs, vines, and every sort of small creature. Our final day together was spent in the Kauri Museum in Matakohe and we learned even more there.

Here’s just a sample of what we learned about trees today. The kauri tree is very slow growing, but it lives a very long time. Tane Mahuta, the tallest living Kauri, is in its second millenium. Te Matua Ngahere, the living kauri with the widest girth is in its third millenium. You see, they really do live a long time. Mark and I have seen trees much taller than these, but the amazing thing about these giants is that they grow straight up and have no limbs except at the very top. Actually they have limbs when they are young, but those are shed so as to leave no knots in the wood. That made the kauris great candidates for masts and spars for ships, and it is for that reason there are few of them left standing. Another New Zealand tree, the totara, grows just as tall, but it does not get as big around nor does it live as long. The Maori used the totara for making canoes. One of my favorite trees here is the rimu or red pine. It actually gets a little taller than both the kauri and the totara, but it is usually a skinny little tree in comparison. I love the way the rimu branches drape, just like a tall and very thin willow. when Captain Cook was here in the late 1700′s he used the fruit of the rimu to make drink to fight scurvy.

There were so many excellent displays in the Kauri Museum that it is hard to know where to begin to tell you about it. Saw mills have been recreated in this museum by bringing in the original machinery and tools. There was everything from the chain saws used to bring down these big monsters to the band saws and vertical saws used to cut them to the huge planers that made the boards smooth. Boarding houses, farm life, and logging were all brought to life here with life-size wax models. There were displays of furniture and examples of various types of wood. I enjoyed seeing the kauri store counter from Hook Brothers Store in Paparoa, late 1800′s. The store’s motto was, “Anything from a cotton reel to a ship’s anchor.” Evidently this store was the quintessential general store. There were also small boats built of kauri, as well as boat models. We saw a butter churn made of kauri wood that produced 100 boxes of butter per load and each box contained 56 pounds of butter–that’s a lot of butter! The kauri gum displays were also quite interesting. Just like amber, kauri gum sometimes encased the fossils of ancient plants and animals. Some of these were on display as well as kauri gum in every size, shape, and tone from yellow to brown. With all of this, I think my favorite display were the tree rings drawn on the wall showing the girth of the biggest kauri trees. The center of the display had a round that came from between the stump and the first log of a section of the Balderson kauri. A slab of this same kauri was in the same room and went from one end of the room to the other. Next out from the middle was the ring of Tane Mahuta, God of the Forest, that we saw yesterday. This tree is the tallest kauri living, but it is only 4.38 metres or 14.4 feet in diameter. That makes it 45 feet around. The next ring was representing Te Matua Ngahere, Father of the Forest, that we also saw yesterday. This tree has a diameter of 5.22 metres or 17 feet making it 54 feet around. Finally, the last ring out was representing the Giant Kauri Ghost. This is the largest kauri ever on record and it grew on the Coromandel Peninsula south and east of Auckland. This tree was 88 feet around with a diameter of 8.54 metres or 28 feet but it is no longer standing.

Enough about the Kauri Museum. Mark and I both love wood and love building, so this museum tour was a special treat for us. From the museum, we headed to Auckland. We made a stop in a place called Warkworth for a late lunch and after getting caught in Sunday traffic, we made it to the Top 10 south of Auckland around 6 pm. We helped Alan and Helaine get their bags in their cabin and made sure they had arrangements for getting a cab to the airport at 4:00 in the morning. We then hit the road back to Whangarei. As we walked down the ramp to Windbird, I could smell that special marine smell. It was a great month, but it is good to be back home. Our thoughts now turn to getting Windbird for another season of sailing. I’m ready for those South Seas beaches.

070325 Web Pics–Whangarei to Auckland

Day of Celebration
Date: Saturday, March 24, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy; Short Rain in Early Afternoon
Location: Whangarei, New Zealand

The Whangarei marine businesses have an association that works very hard at recruiting world cruisers to come here and once we arrive, they work very hard to make sure we know they appreciate having us here. When we first arrived, there was a dinner for all world cruisers in the Northland and today, before the masses start heading north, there was a hangi in our honor. A hangi is a ‘feast’ where the food is cooked in an earth oven. Just like a lobster bake in the Northeast US, you simply dig a big hole, put lots of hot rocks in the bottom, put the food in to roast, cover, and then wait. Today’s affair was held at noon and before eating we were honored in the traditional Maori way. A warrior is sent out to challenge the visitors, to find out our intentions. If our intentions are honorable, then the person chosen to represent us picks up whatever has been laid down as the peace offering. The warrior then retreats and we are officially welcomed and invited to follow. Today they added a piece where a member of our party (the world cruisers) was asked to speak on our behalf–to give our thanks to the busnesses and people that have been so welcoming while we have been here in Whangarei. Somehow Mark was the chosen speaker and he graciously thanked this wonderful community. Then we got to eat. At a hangi, it is traditional to have roasted pork and chicken and in Maori country you also have potatoes, kumara (sweet potatoes), roasted pumpkin, and cabbage. Before lunch we were served New Zealand green mussels. It was a great luncheon and a time to see other cruisers that we have not seen for a while. Not everyone is here right now as some cruisers have not returned from trips homes while others are still land touring, but there was a group of around 75 people. Alan and Helaine went with us and got to meet a few more of the friends we have made over the past year and a half. Right in the middle of lunch, the rain came, but many of us were eating under the tents provided and the rain ended quickly, so no one’s spirit was broken by the bad weather today.

After the hangi, we went in search of AH Reed Park. We had read in the tourist information literature that this is a kauri tree park here in Whangarei that has a very creative boardwalk high above the ground. We found the park and enjoyed our walk in the tree tops. Of course, we were not at the top of the canopy as that is where the kauris reach, but we were above the tree ferns, palm trees, and small trees of other types. We walked to a waterfall and then back to the car park. It was time to think about dinner which was going to entail a trip to the grocery store. We needed to eat early this evening as we had all decided to go to the touring circus that is visiting next to our marina.

We had another fantastic New Zealand steak and salad meal, and then Helaine, Mark, and I headed to the circus. Alan decided to sit this one out. This was a ‘one ring’ circus much like I would envision traveling circuses in the US in the 1930′s and 40′s. The acts were not polished, but it was still great fun. There was a trapeze artist with no net, a clown, a juggler, performing ponies and poodles, and even an African elephant named Jumbo. This elephant has been with the ringmaster for 30 years and both are retiring soon due to ringmaster health issues. But the ringmaster was not going out quietly. He also treated us to some tricks with his whips. In addition to seeing the circus, we got to see our friends from Jade–Cam, Arnie, and their two girls, Nancy and Molly. We haven’t seen them since Tonga, so it was a joyous reunion.

Tomorrow we take Alan and Helaine to Auckland and then return here to Whangarei to get down to boat business. Some cruisers are starting to leave already, not to head back into the Pacific just yet, but to cruise in the Bay of Islands before heading north. We are at least a month away from that, but I know the time will fly by quickly. We’ve seen a lot of New Zealand on land, but we don’t want to leave here until we have also explored her by water.

070324 Web Pics–Celebration Day in Whangarei

Into the Kauri Forest
Date: Friday, March 23, 2007
Weather Today: Sunshine and Blue Skies AM; Overcast and Sprinkles PM
Location: Kauri Coast and Back to Whangarei, New Zealand

Whoa! We hit 6,500 kilometres today which is about double what we thought we would be driving on our land tour of New Zealand. Either our planning was way off or we hit every backroad in the country–or both. It is only 1,500 kilometres from Cape Reinga on the North Island to Slope Point on the South Island by line of sight, but with the ‘S’ curve roads we have been traveling, we have more than doubled the round trip mileage. That’s a lot of driving, but we have seen so much. And today was no exception.

The sun was shining brightly over Doubtless Bay when we awakened this morning in Whatuwhiwhi on Karikari Peninsula. When Captain Cook sailed by the entrance in 1769 he wrote in his journal, ” . . . doubtless a bay.” Well, he was wrong, and this morning Doubtless was beautiful. We left Whatuwhiwhi and took the road back toward the highway, but decided to make a side trip to Puheke Beach on Ranganunu Bay. That required a couple of right turns and an invigorating ride on a washboard of a gravel road. The ride was worth it, however. Puheke is a beautiful white sand beach hidden behind dunes. After walking in the sugar sand, we drove back out through lowland lined with tall pampas grass waving in the wind. The tassles on the grass looked like a sea of pink, white, and tan glistening in the sun. Add to that a few harriers (hawks) soaring overhead and it was picture perfect.

From the Karikari Peninsula we drove west to the town of Kaitaia where we stopped at the Information Centre to find out what we could about our planned trip south through the kauri forest. We had done our homework but it is always nice to get local advice. We did find out that there is not another gumdigger site, so since the one we tried to see yesterday was closed, we will have to learn all about kauri gumdigging at the Kauri Museum in Matakohe on Sunday. For today, We learned from the woman at the i Centre that we were on the right track, so off we went to the Hokianga Ferry. The ride getting there was “interesting” in that it added a few more miles of ‘S’ curve driving up and down the mountains. As we drove into Kohukohu we could see Hokianga Bay coming in from the Tasman Sea. The south side of the bay was lined with giant sand dunes. It was really quite dramatic. Then in Kohukohu we got on the car ferry and it took us across to little Rawene. At one point in history, both of these towns were bustling shipping harbors. Today they are just little tourist towns with a few historic buildings, but Rawene is home to the Boatshed Cafe that offered a great lunch stop. We walked from the cafe down the harbor to see the Clendon House, owned in the 1860′s by James Clenden. He was a shipping magnate back in the day. We also saw one of his homes back in Russell, so he got around.

It was later in the afternoon than we had hoped, so we skipped a stop in Omapere to take another look at the Hokiango Harbor and headed straight for our first stop in the Waipoua Forest to see the giant kauri trees. The massive kauri forests that once dominated the landscape here are now gone, but there are a few kauri stands that remained untouched. These trees are to New Zealand as the redwoods are to the US. Tane Mahuta (God of the Forests), the tallest kauri tree still standing in New Zealand, was our first stop. Just as we got to the viewing platform for the tree, a Maori gentleman started singing a song of praise . It set the tone for viewing such a majestic and ancient tree. Afterwards, Helaine stopped to thank the man for singing the beautiful song for us and we learned that he is a tour bus driver for a brand new tour company. We took business cards to give to other cruisers who might want to go on a guided tour of the area. We drove just a kilometre further and stopped for a 40-minute round-trip walk to see the Four Sisters and the kauri tree with the largest girth, Te Matua Ngahere (The Father of the Forest). The Four Sisters are four huge kauris standing side by side and although Te Matua Ngahere is not as tall as Tane Mahuta, its diameter certainly gives it great presence. As we walked to see the great kauri, we were also learning about the other trees and plants that grow in a kauri forest. Our last stop of the day was another 40-minute round-trip walk through Trounson Kouri Park. This protected rainforest had a wonderful walkway and labels for many of the trees and plants. Since we had been studying the variety all day, it was great to now learn the names. Rather than list the various trees and plants here, I will just include pictures of them in the photo gallery. Once I get the pictures posted at the end of the log, click on the picture and you will automatically be taken to the full gallery for the day. I will say that for a fern lover like myself, the kauri forest is a fairy land of ferns, mosses, giant fern trees, epiphytes of every kind, and even palm trees growing among the majestic giants.

As I am writing this log, we are driving back to Whangarei for the night. We’ll have dinner there and then it is back to Windbird. Tomorrow we will spend the day in the Whangarei area and then back to Auckland on Sunday. Alan and Helaine fly home early on Monday morning, hence the trip to Auckland on Sunday. Our land tour of New Zealand is coming to an end, but we will have memories for a life time. What a beautiful country!

Poem Copied from Information board at Trounson Kauri Park:

from the long lost Gondwana
small unsocial islands drifted
like loose stars
on a clear and frigid night

the tall trees of Tane
towered
amonst the babble
of strange birds
and a universe unique

alone with flax
and the botany of solitude
the creeps of epochs
carried them away

a land of small things
amongst the giants
a wealth of medicines and foods, woods and fuel for fires and flaxes for whare and weaving

for Maori
feathers from birds for adorning,
taming of the hearts of palms and ponga — gardens for planting and harvest

in the white wings of sailboats
whalers and sealers and sailors and saviors with farming
with God and guns and liquor and lawyers
migrants and merchants with money
breaking the land

silhouettes of sawblades
adze heads and axes
the curved turn of horned beasts

the glow of burning issues
smouldering still

070323 Web Pics–Whatuwhiwhi to Whangarei

To the Top of the Top–Cape Reinga
Date: Thursday, March 22, 2007
Weather Today: Overcast AM and PM with a Few Patches of Blue Midday
Location: Cape Reinga, New Zealand

Today was our day to drive as far north as you can drive in New Zealand. We had driven to the southern-most point on the South Island and we just had to replicate the same on the North Island. Unfortunately, the rainy, overcast weather we had for our South Island day was replicated as well. Actually, we had only sprinkles a few times, but our morning and late afternoon were both totally overcast and we actually had fog as we neared Cape Reinga. Once you drive as far as you can, you walk down a path to the lighthouse. As we descended we got a little break and could at least see some of the spectacular coastline below us.

In a town called Awanui we stopped at Ancient Kauri Kingdom Ltd. The Kauri is an ancient tree that grows to great height and girth in New Zealand, but most of the towering forests are gone now. Tomorrow we will be exploring the largest Kauri forest left and you will hear more about this beautiful wood then. The shop were we stopped today sells only items that are made from the ancient kauri buried in the nearby swampland. It is actually carbon dated to be more than 45,000 years old. We enjoyed watching some of the products being made as well as seeing the beautiful end-products. But as I said, more about this tomorrow. From Awanui, we started our drive up the slender peninsula to the “end of the earth.” At least that is how it feels. The paved road goes up the center of the peninsula but there are a few harbors that cut in from the sea right up to the road. At one place we thought the waters were at flood stage as they lapped against the roadside. On the way back down the peninsula in the late afternoon, we realized that it was simply high tide when we drove north as there was no water in sight this second time through. There is another “road” that leads to Cape Reinga called the Ninety Mile Beach road. This really isn’t a road. People drive on the beach at low tide for the length of the peninsula. You can’t do this in rental cars, so this was not to be part of our adventure for today. As we started up the peninsula we found ourselves in very lowland pastures. As we inched our way north, we could start to see glimpses of huge yellow sand dunes on the west coast and bright white dunes to the east. We slowly climbed to about 160 metres, or 580 feet above sea level. Here there were green pastures leading up to green mountains in the clouds to the east and some patches of blue sky with green pastures leading to sand dunes on the ocean edge to the west. The higher we climbed the foggier it got. We were climbing into the clouds, but we could still see the sheep and cows in the pastures, and even a few ostrich. We thought the birds were emus, but we went through Wiatiki Landing and they were selling ostrich burgers. Maybe it was ostrich that we were seeing after all.

When we were 10 kilometres from Cape Reinga all we could see were mountains in front of us and to the east. Almost all of the trees were stunted with no foliage. We couldn’t tell if there had been a fire or a disease that caused the problem. That’s something we will try to find out tomorrow. There were still pastures to the east with glimpses of the ocean from time to time. We started to descend and either the fog lifted or we drove down out of the clouds. Now we could see rolling green hills, sand dunes and rivers or creeks running through the pastures. The next time we started climbing, we went into the clouds again. At this point we saw the turn for Tapotupotu Bay and the fog stayed with us from this point until we reach the end of the road at Cape Reinga. Fog or no fog, we were determined to walk to the lighthouse and enjoy what views there might be. We could look down and see where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific. A clear day would have been wonderful, but we were there and we used our imaginations. Why else do they sell all of those beautiful postcards? I think we’ll have to invest in a couple of those for the photo album.

On our way back down the peninsula, we stopped to walk on the Giant Sand Dunes at Te Paki. There was a guy there named Dave renting boogie boards for dune surfing. We didn’t dune surf, but we did climb and walk on the closest dune and Helaine did slide down on the way back. These dunes seem to go on forever, but actually it is only about three kilometres to the sea. The Ninety Nine Mile Beach road cuts inland here and we did see one car heading in. Thankfully, it was low tide so the car wasn’t struggling. The signs warn of soft sand where some cars have actually sunk. That would not be fun.

It was late in the day when we stopped in Waiharara to see the Gumdiggers Forest. Kauri gum was once used to make varnish as well as beautiful jewelry. Unfortunately this place was permanently closed, but we enjoyed the ‘boot fence’ and huge trunks of Kauri trees in the parking area. Gum diggers had to wear knee high boots and the Wellies were displayed as a reminder of that. We had planned to drive further down the west coast today, but it was late we made a decision to drive out the Karikari Peninsula that was close-by and stay in the Top 10 in a town called Whatuwhiwhi–remember the ‘wh’ says the ‘f’ sound. As we drove the 16 kilometres to our destination, it became evident that food was not going to be readily available out here. We drove on and when we reached the Top 10 we saw Aunty Barbe’s Takeaway. It was the only game in town, so we had deep-fried fish, chicken, sausage, and chips for dinner tonight. That’s okay because this is a beautiful place and the very nicest accommodation we have had during our travels. We can see Doubtless Bay from our cottage window and will hope for a beautiful blue sky in the morning.

070322 Web Pics–Kerikeri to Whatuwhiwhi