Saw this boat going up the river, was quite impressed with his speed for a gondala type thing until I zoomed into the photo and saw the outboard motor in the middle of the canoe!
Maori Boat
Ferry to Russell Peninsula (across Veronica Channel)
This is a totally legit bit of public transport I’ll have you know! I think the final route (when complete) won’t go this way, but for the time being this is the official route. We’re staying at a lovely campsite in Orongo Bay with speedy internets tonight. Heading off to do the Russell Forest Walkway tomorrow, hoping this forest isn’t as jungly as the last..
Finally we set sail!
For all the hours of waiting, it only took us about 10 minutes to cross this short section of water. We were dropped off at a huge marina (which isn’t on the map), got our bearings and made our way to Ruakaka for the night via some Fish & Chips enroute :)
Need to cross a river? You need Paddy Power!
Between Orewa and Brown’s Bay there were two sizeable river mouths in our way. Now, this can be a bit of an issue when you’re a tiddler like me ;) Especially if you forget to research what the tide is doing… !
So first up was Weiti River. Again the trail notes say to ‘just hitch a ride with a local boatie’ which can be easier said than done as we found out a few days before :)
But along came our hero Paddy! A southern irish fellow, genuinely named Paddy. What were the chances?
Crossing Weiti River
Paddy really kindly offered to whisk us over to the trail on the other side on his amazing boat. Had to jump out with the rope at the other end to moor us up. Very exciting :) I would make a good pirate I think…
We haven’t really enjoyed the challenge of finding rides across rivers so far.. So were pleasantly surprised by today’s efficient crossing, especially in such a fine looking sailing boat :)
There’s a shit load of boats moored up in this river mouth, so I reckon it’s always going to be fairly easy to catch a ride on this one.
Back in Auckland
We Made It! 600km In The Bag. I cannot bloody believe I’ve managed to get in a plane and fly somewhere, then walk all the way back. That’s just plain silly…
But i’m *well chuffed*. And I could never have made it without the help of the amazing Cookie!! He’s been leading the way, carrying aaaaall the weight, the food, the water, the tent and the kitchen; lifting me up high steps when my little legs were too short; feeding me sugar when I was flagging. So thank you Cookie! Can’t believe you’ve got me through it ;) … WeyHey!
( Only 2400km left eh ;) ) haha! Getting fitter though! Surely!
Voyage of (360) Discovery to Coromandel
Sleepy eyed we jumped on board the little 360 Discovery ferry to the Coromandel peninsula in the grey and drizzle. Spotted two guys with bikes and matching shirts who were cycling the length of New Zealand in aid of a polio charity.
On our way to Corromandel Town, shame the weather wasn’t better for our cruise across the Hauraki Gulf.. Quick pitstop in the historic Star & Garter pub, to use their wifi of course ;) Then we picked up our ride to Fantail Bay, just north of Colville.Across the Cook Straight on the Interislander
So we’re off! Bye bye North Island… Hello South Island. After a bit of grey and miserable time in Wellington, what with weather, computer crashes, upset tummies, shops closed, and general knackeredness, in a way we were glad to be on the move. Wellington hadn’t been the all singing, all dancing, brazilian carnival of a celebratory finale that I’d imagined.
But now, we were movin on, preparing to start a new phase, and it felt good. Proud of what we’d achieved, we climbed aboard our lift to Part Two of the holiday. The sun was shining, and the fish and chip shop was open. Life was good again :)
After feeling slightly underwhelmed by the achievement of ‘halfway’ while in Wellington, the boat ride across the Cook Straight was quite satisfying, it finally sank in that we’d done the North Island and we’re starting a new exciting leg of our journey.
Some of you may be wondering about this fancy photo montage? We downloaded a new app while in Wellington called Diptic, I’m mighty impressed with it so far, more examples to come! While I’m on the subject of iPad apps, I’ve been meaning to mention Photogene for a while, we use this one to crop, resize and FTP photos to our server, an invaluable tool for blogging on the road. We had a minor disaster in Wellington trying to update this app to the latest version, it required us update the iPads iOS. Big mistake.. The staff a Magnum Macs were very patient with us while iTunes did it’s back up thing many times (Apple, really?), not a quick task when you have 30GB of photos on it.. Anyhow we weren’t patient enough and cancelled the secondary good measure back-up, after the first or second back-up, we lost count.. We corrupted the back-up which meant there was no longer a back-up to back-up from, so we had to restore it to factory settings and lost everything on there.. Oh well, not really a big deal, just a wasted day hanging around in a shop..
Cookie on the Cook straight
Cookie is always a good model for a photo :) I think he has a more expressive face than me. And whenever there’s a chance for a comedy picture he’s always right there! It was incredibly gusty on the boat on the way over but roasting hot at the same time, so it made for some fun mucking about on deck trying to keep our shorts from flapping up and our t-shirts from turn inside out :) Cookie even spotted some wild dolphins chasing us and leaping in and out of the wake. I was inside eating my fish and chips ( with a nice glass of wine ) and missed them – doh! Who had the best deal there?Windy Welly was nothing compared to the wind we encountered on the Cook Straight, the force of it tipped the ferry over on to a jaunty angle as we sailed across. But we had a lot of fun battling our way along the side decks taking pictures of each other getting blasted by it! Love this picture Nicky took of me :)
Top Tip: We choose Interislander Ferry mainly because of their nice ads on the telly, but after buying our ticket online and heading down to the docks we realized that the Bluebridge ferry company has a much more centrally located port for folk on foot like us..
Picton to Endevour Express
Starting to feel like we’ve begun Holiday Mark II properly now. Once again it’s about looking forward rather than looking back and reminiscing. Kind of sad to have left the North Island. Had a lot of fun and met some great people. So many different characters, with different view points on life and their country. And if the North Island might be characterized by the cities, and the farming, what will we find in the South? Much less people I hear. And much bigger mountains… I think the hard stuff might be about to begin :)We collected supplies from Picton, had the hottest although most disappointing curry of the whole holiday and booked our one-way transport to ship cove. $67 with Endevour Express’s speedy catamaran. For a bit extra you can get them to deliver your pack to various resorts along the track each night, tempting, but of course we didn’t!