Day 100

I’m pretty sure New Zealand hates us.

We woke up to sunshine in Auckland this morning. The troupe was in high spirits.

Andy and I wandered over to The Shaky Isles for breakfast. Really tasty food and coffees. We’ll definitely pay the place another visit when we’re next in Auckland.

Fact of the day. There are more people in Auckland than the whole of the South Island.

After collecting our bags from the hotel, we walked to the meeting point. As we boarded the bus, we said goodbye (again) to the guys who left the trip yesterday – they’d come to wave us off. And we welcomed four new people onboard.

We headed north over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. We were not even half an hour away from Auckland when the sky turned grey. As we progressed North, the grey turned to heavy rain… and this is the forecast for the next two days. And this coincides exactly with the number of days we have in the Bay of Islands.

The plan for today was to head north to Northland towards the golden beaches and warm waters of the Bay of Islands. Our first scheduled stop of the day was meant to be at the beautiful Uretiti beach. We could swim (if we were keen), play frisbees or take body boards to the sea. Chill, and relax. When we got to Uretiti beach, we couldn’t even see it, so we pressed on.

We stopped in Wellsford for lunch. As it was relatively dry, we picked up a few bits and pieces to eat in the bus later, and instead walked down the high street, and too late came across the Albertland Heritage Centre. We poked our head round the door. We were 22 mins into our 30 mins stop so we sensibly turned back. It looks like a good local museum, full of pioneer-era stuff. One for next time? Thinking about this further, maybe not. Most towns around here have similar museums, so we just need to make sure we catch one of them.

We spent the next couple of hours in the bus talking about our options for tomorrow. Bearing in mind the weather, do we want to pay a substantial amount of money to potentially see not much at all? Or do we play it safe. We’re torn. The safe option could be fun, but it would mean missing out on the scenery around here… which is supposed to be outstanding. Or do we take a chance and who knows?

Which is funny, in a non-funny way. Because they’ve had a drought up here. And locals have been praying for rain (yeah, it worked). The communities further north are poorer, and the infrastructure not so good. Most people are not connected to water mains, and get their water from tanks. So the rain is welcome. I chatted to a woman at lunchtime. She was happy the rain was on its way. I told her I understood but I wished it’d held up another three days. The rain is making front page news.

Back on the bus, Holly lifted our spirits by playing rain-themed songs and choruses of ‘it’s raining men’; ‘always look on the bright side of life’ and ‘it’s a beautiful day’ amongst others soon filled the bus.

Now Kawakawa was a stop with a difference. This small bustling town was dying until 1997 when the regeneration of its public toilets brought it world recognition. The town is now well established on the tourist route, with buckets of tourists visiting the ‘attraction’ daily. The internationally regarded Austrian architect and ecologist Friedensreich Hundertwasser was commissioned to design and build the toilets. He’d been living in that part of the world for a little while, and he made use of local materials and talent during the construction. The fact that the town also has a railway line running down the main street, and a historic railway stations with old engines (one of them built in Bristol), well… that was just a bonus.

At Paihia, we had the option to stay in town and have a look around or take a 1.5 hours walk. From town, the walk would go through a mangrove to the thundering Haruru waterfalls. At the time, the rain was heavy, so we decided to stay in town. Paihia is a quirky town. We walked the grounds of the public library. A woman walked towards us and offered us a fig each. The library used to be the house of Reverend Henry Williams, who was keen that the house remains part of the community. His descendants (including current ones) made sure of that and the house and its ground have survived many development threats and are now a historic estate of national importance. The grounds have been converted into a mini outdoor museum. The mini orchard is healthy; the figs were tasty. We continued our exploration of Piahia. The waterfront was recently done up and has cool features like a mosaic bench representing local wildlife and with coins displayed here and there. The water re-filling station was designed by local kids so people could refill their water-bottles so as to reduce the amount of plastic bottles. There’s a mini free-exchange library. Cool stuff. We walked down Paihia Lanes, but at 3.45pm, all shops and galleries were shut for the day.

We went to collect the brave walkers, who’d got lucky as it didn’t rain during the duration of their walk. Fortune does favour the brave. The only reason we didn’t go for it was that Andy wasn’t wearing his waterproof trousers. Because of the rain, the waterfall was big and powerful.

At the campsite, we collected the key to our nice chalet – fully equipped with a kitchen and an en-suite. Holly informed the guys not to pitch near the river – which is full flowing and close to bursting its banks. The river, we’re told, is normally low and rocky. We took a walk along the river banks.

After dinner, we stayed up and shared a couple of bottles of wine and tried to figure out what to do tomorrow, as we’re expecting the same weather as today.

Kia Kaha (be strong).