Cape Reinga to Karikari Peninsula (Rangiputa)

Tauranga Bay Northland

Continuing our travels northward we headed out to the coast toward Whangaroa Harbour, another place we had visited back in our twenties. The weather continued with sporadic showers and sunshine. We managed a few walks between the showers, including a walk above the cliffs at Matauri Bay and to the memorial for the Rainbow Warrior which was blown up in Auckland Harbour back in 1985 by French Agents. Big shock to little NZ back in the day.

Tauranga Bay Camp

Had a night at Tauranga Bay right on the beach front, a little seaside camp from yesteryear. Talking to a fellow camper, he said a few of them park up for a couple of months over  winter. The camp did a discount rate by the month including power, and a great fishing spot. Hopefully we will return sometime for longer.
Onwards we continued, unaware till now of how many beautiful beaches are up this way. We hadn't really appreciated how lovely they were, so now keen to return when the weather is warmer and swim in these beautiful bays.

The famous Fish & Chip Shop at Mangonui

The Motor Home App we are using to find where to park at night has been a very useful tool and influences the routes we take. So as we came into Coopers Beach we had the option of two places to park over for the night - both at the reasonable price of $5. One was the Bowling Club and the other the Mangonui Fire station

Wash Day at Rarawa (Doc Camp #3)

which looked the more attractive spot to park up and walk the area from. We had a fellow motorhomer beside us the first night who informed us he had been there 3 nights and found it lovely and quiet. This should have been our warning...... Just after 11pm the siren went off for the first time! Being Volunteers the siren keeps going till everyone turns up. No worries, we feel back to sleep shortly after. Then an hour and a half later they returned and refilled from the water tanks right beside us. All good. Back to sleep. Then 6am the siren was set off again! Same procedure. Busy old night in Mangonui and for the firefighters.

Rangikapiti Pa Site looking over Mangonui

Mangonui is a lovely historic fishing village. Once a busy whaling town with lovely old wooden buildings and the famous fish & chip shop where we had lunch. Nice fish but the place lacked atmosphere. This may have just been being Monday and everyone was a little flat at the beginning of the week!
On our way back home we walked up to the Rangikapiti Pa Site, an ancient Maori Fort with wonderful views out over Doubtless Bay. Perfect spot to view the area.

Cape Reinga Light House

Onto Ahipara to catch up with Fran's daughter Kylie and daughters Tineka (13yr) and Trinity (12), just out of Kaitaia on the coast. We were looking forward to a couple of days sunshine to walk around the area but the rain unfortunately continued - so much that it flooded the bottom of Kylie's section where we had parked up. Thought we were going to need a tractor to pull us out but our little Bus had no trouble crawling out of the soggy ground. With it being so wet and no point going out, I did some work online while Bill rehung and installed curtains for Kylie. Reminding him he had hung curtains for Fran several years ago too! Keeping curtains in the family!!

I finally made Cape Reinga
(The little blue person under the signs)

Bill has still been getting the electrics sorted in the Bus as we have had a few issues with being 12v only - including the fridge. At times it's been a bit of a struggle with all the overcast days and the batteries not getting charged enough from the solar panels. We have become a bit obsessed with tracking the current drawn and voltage readings as batteries are charging. At least now with Bill having installed an inverter, we can run the bread maker. The results have been good but I'm still getting used to the oven. Nice we are once again self sufficient in our bread needs (or should that be kneads :) )

Looking back to Tapotupotu and Cape Reinga
in the distance. Spot the Bus!

Made it to Doc camp number #1 at the top of Northland adjacent to Cape Reinga - the lovely beach of Tapotupotu. (Did you know there are 101 Doc camps in the North Island and 124  in the South Island ! Some only accessible on foot or by boat.) We spent three nights here hoping for spectacular weather to visit the Cape and see where the Tasman and Pacific Oceans meet but unfortunately we kept having intermittent showers and mist come through . We did manage a few walks up onto the ridges surrounding the bays to get some amazing views.
Will return to Tapotupotu another time when it is warmer for swimming and hopefully complete the walk out to Cape Reinga in the not too distant future.

Tapotupotu Beach from the northern end. 

We did get to visit the cape by driving there on our way out to the next camp. Not perfect  weather but pleasantly not busy and truly an iconic destination for all kiwis.
Amazing how its on a lot of visitors To Do List, yet it is not quick to get there especially if you are only in the country for a few days or weeks.

Spot the Apiarist

Next camp was just down the road into Spirits Bay - Kapowairua Doc Camp #2. Quite a remote camp & beach but stunning. On our arrival there was hazard signage stating a Helicopter was operating. No sign of the helicopter, just two utes with "True Honey Co" signage parked up. Shortly after we got settled, the helicopter returned from deep in the Manuka covered hills, transporting some hives back onto one of the utes. Off he returned to the hills and returned carrying three guys in apiarist suits, then repeated the trip for another 3.
After some time the helicopter took off again, this time carrying the Apiarist's one at a time on a harness into different parts of the forests. They were left there for a couple of hours before he returned to pick them up. Pretty amazing jobs!
We had the luxury of 5 days north of Kaitaia and think it will be well worth a revisit.
The buried swamp Kauri Forests caught Bill's attention.......

Matai Bay through the Pohutukawa's

It raised a lot more questions than answers, but talking to a wood turner at Ahipara it is an interesting story of 1000 yr old trees  falling into the swamps at the time of the last ice age ??? and now being extracted but still beautiful to work. A rewarding industry for many with bowls and platters commanding several thousands of dollars. Chinese businesses were wholesale extracting logs and sending them home to be worked and re imported here to be sold on to Chinese tourists to once again be taken back to China . Go Figure!! I did get my piece of Kauri, not sure what I can use it for but to know it was growing when we were swinging from the trees makes it a little special.....

Rangiputa

Julie & I looking back to Rangiputa

Bill, Julie & Steve looking out to Karikari Bay on the left

From here, it was on to Rangiputa to catch up with Julie & Steve who have been on to us for years to come and visit their little bit of paradise. They feel the 4 hour trip from Auckland has always been worth the effort over the past 15 years to come up to their Batch. Finally we made it. And had a fabulous four days fishing, wining & dining us with their neighbours Graeme & Pam where we managed to catch the first game of the Bledisloe Cup, and had a good look around the Karikari Peninsula. We look forward to returning J&S when we can swim those beautiful beaches. Thanks Steve for showing Bill how to catch those big ones.
Now it's time to return to Auckland, catch up with family again before heading South.

Bill & Steve returning from
fishing out in the Bay

Well done Bill
(and Julie & Steve & Graeme)

Beautiful  beaches

Beautiful but wet Northland

From Manganese Point looking across to Marsden Point
and Whangarei Heads

Fan unit removed

After leaving Waihi Beach and returning to Auckland, we had a night with W&K returning some borrowed tools that Bill required to be able to do the renovations. Had lovely lunch with them the next day at Hallertau Brewery, another "to do" on our list of places to visit before moving onto Allan & Nicky's in the country. Well I would say the country, but in Auckland it is another suburb - Wainui. They are currently renting while building in the area, so it was wonderful for us that they had such a huge concrete area Bill could complete the last alteration to the Bus - removing the air conditioning radiator and fans which would give us an extra outside locker. The job took a bit longer than Bill had expected, not that easy to remove as first thought. But 3 days later we were on our way with a new locker. Thanks again A&N, looking forward to some travels with you both once your new caravan arrives.

Bill preparing to build locker

The new locker was required as we are trying to consolidate all our gear into just the bus and car. We have decided to sell the trailer as three vehicles just doesn't work.
Leaving the car and trailer at A&N's for now, we headed north to Uretiti Beach Doc camp an hour and half away which was good as we didn't get away till mid afternoon. Thought we would avoid traffic congestion! Unfortunately there was an accident the other side of the tunnel, just south of Warkworth. Took about 40 mins for the Emergency Services to get everything under control and get traffic moving one direction at a time. Weather wasn't bad at that time, speed had to be the factor in what looked a nasty accident involving two vehicles. All the money spent on the roads sadly won't stop these sort of accidents.
We made it to Uretiti nearly on dusk, and what a pleasant sight it was. We have bought a Doc Pass through the NZMCA Club which gives us access to all the Doc camps except the serviced ones and a few over the Christmas school holidays. We know there are a lot of Doc camps in the south island, and are surprised on the number up north.

Looking south from the Mangawhai Heads

Uretiti Beach camp even had hot showers! Our only cost was $2 for their rubbish bag.
There were about another dozen motor homes spread around the camp and one tent. The beach was lovely to get out and walk along as it was low tide on our arrival.
Luckily our first camp was such a nice spot with good toilet facilities as our vacuum toilet packed up the next morning. Bill spent till 4 in the afternoon trying to fix it but the spring mechanism was a challenge for him. By 4 he had a manual way to make it work, which was enough for the day so off we headed in the other direction of the beach walking a 7km round trip to Ruakaka. Another little seaside settlement, not much signs of life as most owners not in residence.

Uretiti Doc Camp

 We wanted to look around this area as we had visited roughly 40 years ago. Headed down to Waipu Cove, Lang Beach and onto Mangawhai Heads. Certainly alot more people living up this way now, Mangawhai Heads is very scenic.
Unsure if we would stay one or two nights, we ended up staying 3. The weather was lovely crisp blue days - very Nelson like weather. The best weather we had had for sometime. We had frost two mornings - got down to 2 degrees in the bus, but thankfully we have a very warm bed. We used the diesel heater one night which was very pleasant, but the second night the battery had issues and couldn't run the heater. Another little issue Bill has to look at when we are next parked up for a period.

Lovely walk along Uretiti Beach

Up the road from Uretiti Beach is the Marsden Oil Refinery - NZ's only Oil Refinery, producing 70% of NZ's fuels. We called into the Information Centre and watched a very informative video covering NZ's issues with an affordable and  constant supply of fuels particularly after the 1970's oil shortages. Bill and I were overseas when NZ had car less days trying to ensure the short supply of fuels was shared out evenly. Fuel prices rocketed. Marsden Point is in deep sheltered waters at the mouth of the Whangarei Harbour, perfect location for tankers to deliver the crude oil mainly from the Middle East. Amazing the process to covert this crude oil into petrol/ diesel / aviation /kerosene and bitumens. The refinery's processess were explained in such a manner that made it mostly understandable, it is very well done.

Returning to camp from Ruakaka

Toilet repairs

From here we continued onto Whangarei's Burnsco where Bill managed to order the required part to fix our toilet. Picked up a few groceries and then continued onto our camp for the night at Manganese Point, about 15 mins out of Whangarei. This was one of our NZMCA's camps. Right at the end of the point, lovely location to look out across Whangarei harbour to the Marsden Point refinery. Our motorhome association - the NZMCA has some wonderful sites that it either owns or leases throughout NZ - they cost members $3 per person per night. Lovely secure sites to park in, wonderful value.

Doing minor works while parked up at Manganese Point

We decided to have two nights here so we could get back into Whangarei and have a look around what appeared to be an appealing historic town at the top of the harbour. We rode our bikes around the Hatea River Cycle trail around the township. A pleasant way to see the town and read about the history of the town on the various sign boards and monuments. We found Whangarei quite appealing, very pleasant to mosey around.
Next morning we were about to head north when Bill got a call from Burnsco's - they had got the part in. Fabulous! So we picked it up as we headed through and up northward through the Bay of Islands.
Apart from the nice weather we had at Uretiti Beach, we have had mostly overcast wet days. The ground is saturated up here in Northland after constant rains. And so it was when we stopped just before Paihia for lunch, the skies opened once again. Sadly we didn't hang around for long and continued onto Kerikeri to another NZMCA camp.

Center of historic Whangarei

Coming into Kerikeri the properties showing more wealth in this area compared to some of the other parts we had traveled through. A nice modern little town with everything you need - like a laundry (much needed) and library with free wifi which I needed to do some work for a client, after our lap top gobbled up 3 months of data we had! And yes....... we had turned off all the updates etc and it's still doing it. Another little issue to sort. It's not easy living this lifestyle sometimes!!!

Kerikeri NZMCA Camp

Anyway, back to our NZMCA camp site - it was just out of town and backed onto the Kerikeri River and Rainbow Falls Scenic Reserve. It's a lovely large site and can hold quite a few motorhomes but at this particular time there were 6 of us and all huddled on the only gravelled part of the property to avoid getting stuck.

Old Stone Store & Cottage

Whangarei Falls

In the morning Bill was able to fix our toilet properly  - wonderful. And with it still raining we decided to do the hour's walk along the bush lined river bank  down to where it comes out into the Kerikeri Inlet and down to the Old Stone Store (NZ's oldest surviving stone store built around mid 1830's).

Spoonbills nesting along the river

Well, 5 hours and 13km's later we returned home, a bit wet and muddy. It was a very pleasant walk along the river, even though it was in full force and quite noisy in places, the Falls were quite splendid with all the rain that had been drenching the area for sometime. We had lunch at the Pear Tree Cafe which is beside NZ's oldest Pear Tree of course. This recharged us to continue into Kerikeri township and brows the shops and a wonderful SPCA Op shop which had a room full of second hand books. We have both enjoyed having the time to get back into reading, so don't like to let an opportunity pass by where we can stock up or swap our books.

Haruru Falls Bay of Islands

Rainbow Falls Kerikeri

We returned back along the river and home to change into some dry clothes. Definitely need the Laundromat now.Thankfully the next day was fine and breezy to help dry our washing while Bill worked on a couple of leaks we appear to have. A bus of the age ours is, of course there will be rust issues. It's trying to get on top of them before it deteriorates the body too much! So he managed to find the cause of one leak but will have to wait till we have more time, and it's dry to investigate the other at a later stage.

Kerikeri river walkway below Rainbow Falls

Part of the enjoyment of our lifestyle is the interesting and lovely people we met, and you never know who you will meet from the past. A couple who parked up on our last night at Kerikeri, Bill got talking to and then realised he had worked with Bruce back in his early days in Auckland in the 80's. So Bruce & Noeline came over that evening (had to be our vehicle as we had a bit more room - something one has to take into consideration when you are socialising with other motorhomers) and had a good catch up on fellow technicians we had worked with back then. And sadly who had passed on too. Lots of laughs, it was a lovely catch up.
So with clean clothes, a working toilet, fridge & cupboards restocked, it was time to continue our travels. Lets hope we see some sun soon.

Plenty of rain - water almost into our electrics at Ahipara