Coromandel Quest

After a leisurely breakfast, we did some shopping then wandered round to Riverside Drive where we chatted with Rebecca and Patrick from Brick House, then had tea with Karla on Esperanza, saw Janet and Derek from Shilling, then Han (Esperanza), Jan and Marian (Avanta).  So there was some good gossip all round, although the tidings weren't always so good.

In the evening I'd elected to cook on board rather than go out, so we started with wild rocket, feta and grape salad, then chicken with honey, ginger and shallots with broccoli (my favourite vegetable!!), followed by cheese and biscuits.  We would have had Christmas pudding with brandy custard as well, but I was stuffed.

After three days in Te Kouma, we sailed north to Colville, a tiny hamlet on the west coast of the peninsula which seemed to be backed by a huge caravan park.  Little motorboats whizzed about like demented waterbugs, so we went just a little further north and anchored in a cove backed by a shingle beach.  We thought we'd have it to ourselves, but just before dark a catamaran and another motorboat anchored in the same cove.

The next morning saw the clouds pouring over the hills, yet we stayed in fine weather all day, making the short crossing to Great Barrier Island very quickly.  The entrance is through a host of small islets, yet the way is clear of dangers, the only possible one being Paget Rock which is marked with a perch.  The entrance to Port Fitzroy through Man of War Passage is fascinating, in that the sides of the passage are so close together, perhaps just 75 metres wide, yet there is a minimum depth of about 12 metres.  The passage then opens out into the huge natural harbour of Port Fitzroy, where there are literally dozens of little coves and beaches where one can anchor.  We elected to go across to the inlet at Kairara, where we anchored in 5 metres in firm mud, the anchor biting in at once.

One of the best features of Great Barrier Island is the numerous walks one can take along well-marked trails through the bush.  We'd barely finished breakfast the next morning when we were hailed by another yacht: it was Fran on board Tystie with David, inviting us for supper that evening.  David was going for a stroll up to Maungapiko and we asked if we could join him.  The track led up from Bush's Beach at the head of the inlet to a broad forest track, then on to  narrower footpath to the top of Maungapiko.  From here we had glorious views of the east and west coasts of the island, the former showing waves crashing on the beaches, the latter far more benign.  The east coast has more coastal flats, too, which we later discovered were rather like salt marshes, but with a more luxuriant vegetation.

Over supper we discussed what we'd been doing since we last met and what our plans were for the next twelve months.  We're both going to Australia, but whereas Tystie will go from there back to New Zealand, Coromandel will (probably!) be going on to Indonesia.

From the anchorage in Kaiarara, we motored round to Port Fitzroy itself, which we had visited on foot a few days earlier.  Here Andy managed to find the only sticky-up rock in the bay and gave it a slight bump, but no harm done.  The first place we picked was just to the south of Quion Island, but the graunching of the anchor chain on a rocky bottom was a bit unnerving, so we moved just a few metres further south and found good, solid mud again.  From here we took a walk to the old kauri dam, built to get the kauri logs down to the sea.  The ingenious idea was to stack the logs behind the dam, then wait until a sufficient head of water had built up so that when the dam was breached, the logs would go whooshing down to the sea along with the water.  An information board  described the sound and vibrations generated as 'terrifying'.

On the way there we met a man and a lady walking towards us.  I recognized the lady and assumed they were other yachties that we'd met somewhere, but no!  It was Yvonne Davies from the Whangarei Patchworkers' and Quilters' Club and her husband John.  What a small world it is!

Whilst in Kaiarara Andy managed to polish the hull.  He was astonished to find that the bottom 18 inches of the keel is befouled with oysters, possibly the worst fouling we’ve had anywhere and very difficult to clean off.  The first time he tried, he spent about an hour in the water and came out shivering; it took several large hot toddies to chase away the goosebumps, so the next time he had a go, he dug the wetsuit out.

On the following day, we left Port Fitzroy to sail down to Whangaparapara, a small bay on the south east coast from where we could walk to the hot springs at Kaitoke.  This time we left the Broken Islands to port, then had to beat down to Whangaparapara in the same sort of short, steep seas that we had disliked so much on the passage from Tonga to New Zealand.  I even had to put my waterproofs on again, and Andy got well splashed when he had to go on deck to reef the main.

The entrance to the bay at Whangaparapara was quite hard to find, and it was a case of simply believing it was there rather than being able to see it, but eventually it opened out and we motored in, the wind dying, as usual, as soon as we were in the lee of the land.  To port and starboard were small coves, but we motored to the head of the bay and anchored in about 4 metres, again in firm mud.  The walk first followed an old tramway, winding through stands of remu, totara and kanuka trees.  Again there were warnings about kauri die-away disease, which had been prominent in the Port Fitzroy area.

Finally we came to the hot springs, where the stream had been dammed to form a little pool.  Since we had seen so few people on our walks around the island, we simply took off our clothes and luxuriated in the hot water - just about bath temperature and steaming gently in the still air.  Of course the inevitable happened.  "Someone's coming," said Andy, and we both rushed out of the pool, me making a grab for the towel and throwing Andy his shorts.  By the time the first people arrived, I was sitting nonchalantly by the forestry bench, pretending that I always wore just a towel.  Ironically, within 10 minutes about 20 other people had arrived, meaning that Andy had to hold the towel as a screen for me to dress behind.  Shades of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.  One of the people to come along was Rex, whom we had met with Mette and Ulla on Chennakker.  He had been anchored at the same place in Whangaparapara for six weeks and seemed to be living on lobsters and mussels.

Our walk back to the boat took us through a very different landscape.  The terrain was much more level and in places the boardwalks took us over reed beds and marshes, very different from the hilly terrain we were used to on Great Barrier Island.  There were very few kauri trees, too: presumably the east of access meant that they had all been felled in the 19th and 20th centuries.  The final part of this walk was along a dirt road, but luckily we were given a lift by a local.  At first I though he was Maori, but it turned out that his grandfather had been a Brazilian whaler who had jumped ship in Great Barrier Island in the mid 19th century.

Rex came aboard for a drink that evening and next morning Andy fixed his computer and they went on a mussel-gathering expedition which netted a bucketful of green-lipped mussels.

Although Whangaparapara was a pleasant inlet, with the wind in the south east it had the potential to be a bit roly, so we left next morning to make our way back to Port Fitzroy, this time anchoring in the Kiwiriki inlet.  I would have liked to go to Smokehouse Bay, where there are a variety of facilities for yachts, including a bath which you can heat up with a wood fire, but there always seemed to be a lot of other yachts there, so we gave it a miss.   As it was we had Kiwiriki to ourselves until just before dusk, when two motorboats came in and anchored on the other side of the bay.  I cooked the mussels in two batches in the largest saucepan I had - delicious, even without the usual white wine and garlic.

One of the things we've remarked on is that New Zealand is described as a yachties' paradise, yet we've found that although it is said that one in three Kiwis owns a boat, I would say that about 90% of these are motorboats, not sailing boats.  Certainly on Coromandel and on Great Barrier Island, the majority of vessels were motorboats.  Another odd thing is that few of them fly their national flag - horror or horrors! - which in a sense separates them from the foreign-flag vessels, who usually do, even though by the time they've got this far, they're a bit on the ragged side.  The weather forecasts, too, are somewhat unreliable: we waited in expectation of a blow for five days before it actually arrived, and then it was only 20 knots rather than the forecast 30-35.  This can lull one into a false sense of security: one day they'll forecast 35 knots and it WILL be 35!

So Coromandel Quest has now made it to Coromandel - for the third time, we think - and as Andy said, we can start making our way back now!  Well, we're  now east of the dateline rather than west, and the miles to go to Blyth will be decreasing rather than increasing.  It's an odd situation and feeling.  We find ourselves saying, "Next time we're here we'll do so-and-so," which adds a different dimension to our viewpoint.  Ah, well - we'll see what happens.

Te Kouma Bay, Coromandel

Coromandel Harbour

Andy Fishing in Te Kouma

Andy and David, Kiwiriki Trail

Kaiarara Bay, Great Barrier Island

Great Barrier Island

Kauri Dam

Anchorage at Quion Island

Entrance to Port Fitzroy

Whangaparapara