Kauri giants at Waipau Forest ; Auckland museums and waterfront ; Titiranga, Piha, and Karekare ; Flight home

(posted from a friend’s home, Bristow, Virginia)
(This post covers 29 March - 2 April, 2013)

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Tuesday, 2 April -

Time to go home!
We spent the morning packing at Ambury Regional Park’s picnic area. We stayed in their campground last night but their picnic area is actually closer to the showers and had two picnic tables together under a nice, shady tree. And we needed the shade. Here we are in the southern hemisphere’s equivalent of October and it’s in the high Seventies and quite hot in the sunshine every day.
After packing, cleaning up the van (and ourselves), and having lunch we used the GPS to find a dump station and car wash. Unfortunately the car wash part of it didn’t work out. It seems most car washes are the automated ones and the high-top van can’t enter the lane. Our contract says there may be a $45 per hour cleaning fee applied if it’s excessively dirty. I’m pretty sure that refers to the interior but I was going to wash off the mud and dust on the outside just to be sure.
We then drove to the Auckland airport and made several rounds through both the international and domestic terminals to familiarize ourselves with them. We then went ahead and checked in at the International terminal to get our checked bags out of the way, our carry-on luggage weighed and tagged as having been okayed, and our boarding passes issued. We had to make some last-minute adjustments and ended up discarding a few older clothes to get down to the weight and size limits but we did avoid any extra-bag or oversize charges.
Then we went to a nearby McDonald’s to wait for a call from our outfitter when he arrives. He’s flying in from Christchurch to drive the van back home and we’re picking him up and the airport just two hours before our flight leaves.
At 1600 we drove to the domestic terminal to await his arrival and minutes later he joined us curbside and dropped us off at the other terminal.
We boarded at 1845 but just after taking our seats we were all told a security check had been missed and we all had to depart the plane and take our carry-on bags! That resulted in a 45 minute delayed departure and made us a bit nervous about our connection.
Our flight to San Francisco was 13+ hours and was a bit rougher than usual. The turbulence wasn’t awful, just enough to keep the fasten-seat-belts sign on most of the time and suspend serving of hot drinks.
We were served two good meals and free wine and soft drinks.
We had plenty of movies and TV shows to watch on the seat-back screens. I watched ‘On The Road’ and episodes of ‘The Mindy Project’ and ‘The Lowdown’. I also tried ‘Red Dwarf X’ but had to abandon that silly laugh-track-overdrive show within a few minutes.
In San Francisco our arrival process went smoothly and we made sure to fully declare everything we could think of--- which of course resulted in us being sent to the more-extensive-interview line. That turned out to be a good thing in that I had unwittingly brought in mud and small weeds stuck to it on the soles of my lugged shoes. They had to be cleaned and sanitized. If this had been found without our declaring we had been in close proximity to animals or walking in farmyards or pastures and that had been spotted, we’d have been hit with an immediate $200 fine.
We originally had more than two hours of layover time but with the immigration check-in, the retrieval of baggage and then having the bags x-rayed while our entrance declarations were reviewed, the shoe cleaning, the checked-bags transfer to the domestic side, the long walk to terminal 2, the full security scan of all our carry-on baggage, pocket contents, and our bodies, we only had twenty minutes to spare before boarding our next flight. We quickly ate a good-ole-US-made burger before our flight (‘Burger Joint’ at SFO is fantastic!).
The last flight was a bit under six hours on Virgin flight 90 to Dulles. We were a bit shocked to learn you had to rent a headset for $3, pay $8 for any movie, and pay $15 for a sandwich and chips and $14 for a glass of wine. Only soft drinks were included. We did none of the above and won’t be flying Virgin again anytime soon. There’s nothing special there. They even had ads playing over the speaker system after the safety announcements and they’d over-ride the entertainment system.
The flight was smooth and we arrived a bit early. As we exited the plane, Labashi’s brother called and we made arrangements for pickup. A half-hour later we were in their home relaxing and having a late-night snack of spaghetti and meatballs.
We stayed up perhaps another hour then crashed heavily after being awake 36 hours (all, thanks to the International Date Line, on the same day!).

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Monday, 1 April -

There was nary a sound at our suburban campsite at Pukekohe over night. We woke to another nice day, once again headed to the mid-Seventies and sunny. We only had one cold night the entire trip and that one was our first night in the van. We had stayed at a site with power so were able to use the electric heater supplied with the van. But our plan was to avoid the commercial campgrounds as much as possible so we thought we were in for some cold nights. We only had a few mornings when it was a bit uncomfortable to wash with (the unheated) water from the van’s water supply.
Today our plan was to go west from Auckland to the beach at Piha. It’s amazing how much wilderness there is just an hour west of the city.
Along the way this morning we stopped at the little village of Titirangi, supposedly a haven for the Bohemians and red-necks (the latter called “Westies” and supposedly all wearing mullets and black tee shirts, if we’re to believe Lonely Planet). We had an excellent bacon, lettuce, avocado, and tomato sandwich and only saw regular families having a nice brunch at our cafe. The one thing different from home is the Public Holiday Surcharge. On holidays the cafes, museums, etc, charge 15% extra to cover their costs for paying employees time and a half to work the holiday.
We then continued out the narrow road to Piha beach and snagged one of the last parking spots available on this holiday. The beach here is flanked by huge rocks and about three quarters of it is surfing beach. To the far right is a swimming beach marked by flags and very carefully watched as the undertows in this area can be quite dangerous.
We walked the black sand and happened to be there when an extra-large wave came in and flooded far up the beach, causing the sunbathers to scramble. We had been walking along the wet-sand/dry-sand borderline and suddenly had water nearly to our knees. It wasn’t dangerous, just funny to watch the crowd pick up on what was happening and grab their gear and make a run for it.
We then drove over to another beach south at Karekare. This beach is famous for nearby Farley Point, where, it’s said, in 1825 Father J. T. Farley became the first Irish-born surfer-priest in New Zealand.
At Karekare we walked the Taraire track which first visits waterfalls, then climbs up the steep hill for a view and returns to the Karekare Road, a walk of about an hour and a half.
After a break, we walked to Karekare Beach. It’s known for being the beach where the piano-awash scene in the movie ‘The Piano’ was filmed and it’s a wonderfully scenic stretch of beach. And when you see the scenery on the landward side, it too is incredible.
We then started back to our camp for the night at Ambury Regional Park, about ten minutes from Auckland airport.
We talked with our outfitter today by phone and he’s flying in tomorrow afternoon. We’ll pick him up at the domestic terminal and turn the van over to him and he’ll drop us off at the international terminal for our flight home in a few hours.
After supper we walked into the nearby sheep paddock to watch the sun set.

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Sunday, 31 March -

Our second night at Long Bay was also a nice, quiet one. Since it’s the Easter holiday we weren’t sure what to expect. With everyone off we thought we might have a difficult time finding a campsite. That’s why I specifically chose a parking-lot type of site rather than a traditional campground. As it turned out there was plenty of room yet our site was very much like a traditional campground. The parking lot had a paved road but all the parking was on nice, level grass and we were only 50 yards from the beach. Price was $6 per person. Commercial campsites in the area are $18 to $25 per person (but do include hot showers).
After pack-up this morning I set the GPS for the Auckland Art Museum. We arrived ten minutes before opening and had the good fortune to find a parking spot which was free all day Sunday. We were set!
We first had a coffee at the Gloria Jean’s coffee shop across the street from the museum. There I struck up a conversation with the barista and asked where Gloria Jean’s is headquartered since I’ve seen a few of them in the US. The HQ is in Australia but was originally in the US. The chain did so well in Australia that the Aussie branch bought out the US interests and now operates the company as an Australian one.
We spent the next two hours at the art museum, took a break for lunch nearby, then returned for another hour and a half. This museum is free and has a very interesting collection tracing New Zealand art through the years and does a good job with explanations.
We then walked west to the Sky Tower since it was nearby. As the guidebook says, its main draw is the next-door casino but we were just happy to be out walking around among all the interesting faces, many of them asian and polynesian and a few Maori men with moku (the distinctive face tatoos). We’ve only seen a few during our 45+ days in-country.
We then walked the few blocks back to the van and pulled out the laptops to return to Gloria Jean’s for a wi-fi session, i.e., get the mail, etc.
As 1700 approached we went back to the van and set the GPS for Pukekohe and the free campsite at the hockey fields and tennis courts where we had stayed a week ago. I would happily have returned to Long Bay but it was limited to two nights. Also, we will want to stay out of Auckland tomorrow. There’s a running event on Easter Monday which will close off many of the city streets and our GPS wouldn’t handle that well. It would keep trying to take us down the closed-off streets and that would quickly get frustrating since we don’t have the local knowledge to get around.
At our camp for the night Labashi made us a tasty supper and we finished off the wine we had opened last night.... the expensive stuff. I am happy to report that expensive wine is wasted on me.... I’m just fine with the on-sale ones.
We spent the evening making up lists for our turnover of the van and then a bit of time on the laptops and a look through the guide books.


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Saturday, 30 March -

We woke around 0700 to a foggy morning. We took our time getting ready and packing up and then drove into Auckland on this Easter weekend. The town seemed deserted.
The GPS took us right to the location it believed the museum to be---- in the middle of a residential neighborhood. We used the nearest street intersection from the map to find the real thing, arriving just as the museum was opening at 1000.
The Auckland Museum is a very good one. You’d think with as many museum’s we’ve seen, there’d be nothing left to see.
We spent an hour going through a small part of the Maori exhibit and then had an early lunch before returning for another three hours of looking at exhibits. And still we feel we went too fast.
The lower, or ground, floor was largely high-quality Maori artifacts in the permanent exhibit. The first floor had dinosaurs, volcanos, and natural history exhibits as well as a large exhibit of Pacific Island historical and cultural items.
The second floor had in-depth displays of New Zealand’s involvement in wars from it’s own ‘Musket Wars’ through the Boer Wars in South Africa, the disaster at Gallipolli, the two World Wars, Viet Nam, and UN peace-keeping missions. A real Japanese Zero airplane was on one side of the building and a real British Spitfire on the other.
After the museum, we drove down to the wharf area to walk around. This area has been redeveloped with upscale restaurants, an events center, and park areas. We enjoyed walking along the docks looking at the rich-guy boats. There were many young families about and it was fun watching the kids be kids, splashing around in a wading pool, riding merry-go-rounds and swings, etc.
We bought two small pizzas from a guy who had a masonry wood-fired pizza oven on the back of his truck. We took our pizzas back to the van and opened our bottle of Poppy’s wine we had bought in Martinsborough from Poppy herself.
As the sun was setting we drove out Tamaki Drive which is a long seaside drive through several popular restaurant areas and with nice views over the water.
We then set the GPS for the same campsite we had last night at Long Bay and were there by 2000.
We spent the rest of the evening on laptops and reading.

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Friday, 29 March -

This morning we woke early, at daylight, now 0700 as Fall wears on. We still managed to laze about for a half hour, mostly because nobody else was up and about and we didn’t want to wake the other kiwi-seekers.
On my return from the facilities, I spoke with a German or Swiss couple we had seen yesterday in a nearby campsite. I asked if they had been kiwi hunting and the guy said they had indeed and had seen two kiwis. I asked where and he provided a detailed description of the trail and I realized it was only about 100 meters from our campsite.
He said they had gone out at 0230 and had walked very slowly and as quietly as possible, pausing more than walking. They did not hear any calls at all but would hear a leaf-shuffling sound. They played a cat-and-mouse game until turning on their filtered light. The kiwi was only two meters away!
The second kiwi was at the far end of the loop trail. But as they listened, they heard another sound-- the kiwi was attacked by a predator. The guy thought it was a ferret and said the sound was awful. He said the predator, whatever it was, was making a growling sound and the tussle went on and on. In the end, though, they parted. The guy said he looked then and went back this morning to check and there’s no evidence of the fight in the area. He said the ranger had told him yesterday that kiwis are good fighters and have strong legs and use their talons against an enemy.

After finishing our morning routine we drove back the way we had come to see the kauri giants. We first drove up to Forest Overlook, which is a fire-tower with 360-degree views. Then we went to the Kauri Walk and walked in 20 minutes to see the world’s second largest living kauri, then drove north another 2k for a five-minute walk to see the worlds largest living kauri. Oddly, our camera cannot capture their size, I think because the lens is a wide-angle one.
We then drove to the Waipau Forest visitor’s center for a history lesson on kauri logging and then lunch in the picnic area.
We continued east to Dargaville and a kauri-wood and kauri-gum seller. He turns bowls and makes clocks and executive pens as well as selling the gum or amber. I also learned the kauri gum is called copal, solving a mystery for me as to what copal is I’ve seen listed in accounts of trade in history.
In addition to its uses as an ornament, it has been used historically in paints and varnishes. An entire industry of gum-diggers was in this area and continues today in the form of carved kauri-gum ‘gems’ for tourists and collectors. The smallest start at $75 and for the ones with an insect or partial leaf trapped in the amber, the price quickly jumps up to $500 or more.
The kauri dealer is outside Dargaville and as we entered town we noticed something odd. The streets were almost deserted and almost all the stores were closed. Only the gas stations and a couple of cafes were open. It’s Good Friday and everyone’s off for their weekend.
The kauri-guy’s wife told us the library has free wi-fi and though it’s closed, we could still use the wi-fi. We parked beside the library and spent a couple of hours retrieving mail, sending updates, and calling home via Skype.
We then set the GPS for Long Bay Park outside of Auckland as our goal for the night. Because of our dawdling on the web we were running late on our plan for the day. As we left Dargaville the GPS said we’d not get to our campsite until 1900 so we only made a quick McDonalds stop at supper time. It turned out we made it to the park after dark at 2000.
Our campsite tonight is a nice, grassy parking spot at a public beach in the Long Bay Regional Park. We can hear waves on the beach nearby.

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