Our Winter Holiday in the North Island

On Saturday just passed we returned from a wonderful two week holiday.
Friends, Linda and Jim, lent us their camper van and away we went. 1000Km later we visited and had fun at the following places:

First stop, Coromandel to visit and ride on Artist Barry Brickell's Driving Creek Railway. This is an absolute must do. Barry's interesting terracotta pottery is displayed in the railway retaining brick works. The railway is also an engineering feat. Barry Brickall is New Zealands most well known terracotta potter.

 

Next to Port Jackson and Fletcher's bay at the Northern end of the
Coromandel Peninsular where we walked the track to other bays and built an inukshuk.

Inukshuk

Port Jackson

Waikawau beach

On the way to our next stop for two nights we checked out Waikawau Bay and The DOC Camp where we used to camp more than 35 years ago. Beautiful empty beach. Then on to a cabin in the bush at The Colville Farm Park where we viewed waterfalls and walked up streams in the bush and a track to the top of the range where we could view the Hauraki Gulf and the East Coast.




From Colville we stopped near Coromandel and climbed Castle Rock for its spectacular cliffy views and bush walk before driving on to the Kauaeranga Valley near Thames for the night. Not enough time to take some of the wonderful walks there.

The following day saw us in the Karangahake Gorge walking part of the Rail Trail there. This is a very interesting and scenic walk along an old gold mining railway and through mining tunnels. Also popular with trail bikes.

 

Blue fungi

That night we stopped at a friends place in Te Aroha for two nights. In between we walked,climbed the 952m Mt Te Aroha and soaked in the hot pools in the Te Aroha Domain to recover from all our bush walking and climbing. Mt Te Aroha is a fantastic walk. Much of it is through Old Growth Tawa, Beech and Rimu forest. At 900m it becomes a mossy wonderland. At the summit a while enjoying a coffee from our thermos a Tomtit joined us. We often had their company on the track on the North Eastern side.

The next day we climbed the track to the top of the highest waterfall in the North Island. The Wairere Falls at 153m. This is a lovely bush walk with a great view of the Hauraki Plains from the top. After that we needed another hot soak in a pool so stayed at the nearby Opal Hot Pools.

Off to the Waitakaruru Arboretum
 for a stroll around this replanted quarry and its artworks before heading for Te Awamutu to visit Paul Wright, my primary school teacher where we stayed the night before visiting the 55m Bridal Veil Falls near Raglan. As you will see by the photo they are true to name.

Bridal Veil Falls

Raglan

That night saw us in Raglan and staying with Phillip and Joyce Sweetman. Relations of Melva, before heading to Waingaro hot springs for another long hot soak.

From there we took the Waikeretu road through cliffy limestone country to Port Waikato for a 6Km beach and sand dune walk to the Waikato River outlet.

 Nearly home but not before stopping at Buckland to stay with our good friends Kevin and Sandra Lim for a big catchup.

To summarise, this holiday hi-lighted that New Zealand has fantastic scenery and interesting things to do all over the country at any time of the year. One does not need to wait for summer to enjoy our beautiful place.

The Matata Boardwalk

There has been some progress. Dragged a deck right across to the far side of the wetland to bridge the drain there. Now I just have to build the 60m between.

  The Waiotoi Track is still a great walk. At any time of the year there is always something of interest. The orchids are popping up and the perfume from the Toropapa cannot be missed as one walks past.

Later the same day

We didn't catch any fish to keep so explored instead. Don't forget that this is winter in Northland.
Click the thumbnails for larger photos.

 

 

 
 

Mid Winter - July 21st Sunny - 18 deg Celcius

Hebe Flower

Winter in Northland doesn't mean cold, miserable weather. It just means it is not summer so it's a little cooler, but the weather is much the same. Today is a stunner. Sunny and warm. We are going to take our dinghy out on the ocean and go fishing after lunch.

Hebe Seeds

The Hebe flower was so beautiful in our bush by the drive I just had to take its photo.

Meyer Lemon

The lemon tree has decided that it wants to live and has fruited well for the first time.

Winter colours. Love them.

Spent an hour of so today moving the last big decking section that I have across to the drain on the other side of the wetland as seen in the bottom photo. Now I start building decking to fill the big gap.

Winter Blooms

This beautiful flower burst out near the end of June. Look closely. The centre petals are orange on some and yellow on others. Not clearly displayed here in this night photo without flash but in the hand the colours are distinctly different. Most unusual we think.

The Wetland Walkway to the Hugh Crawford Reserve has started.

More than started. It has got as far as the main drain through the wetland. Nearly half way in distance.
The objective is to get the the reserve. (The bush on the far side of the rushes.) It is normally difficult to get into as there is little safe parking space on Ngunguru Road with its banks and drop offs. Visitors will be able to park in the beginning of Old Mill Lane and access the reserve.

The planks on top of the decking are to skid the large completed sections of decking.

Riverbank News

The Weta House seems to be well populated with up to seven Weta at any one time. There are males and females. I hope they make it home and raise little Weta.

A third bunch of bananas is forming. We plan to plant a whole lot of suckers out soon. Need more palms for more bananas.

The bees are in winter mode but still bringing in pollen. The newest hive has a feeder on top. The will need a little help to get through the winter. The first hive will probably need feeding also.

The Matata Boardwalk across our wetland to the Hugh Crawford Reserve

At last! The boardwalk has started. I have three sections in. About 20m total. The total distance is about 100m. It is being constructed from recycled timber. See photos. The logs are being laid cross ways to the main bearers and are the foundation for the deck. I have about 50m of made up sections. I drag one at a time by car to the site then with the use of a crowbar and a chain block pulling against an anchor on the other side of the wetland I manage to pull the sections into place.
When completed the public will have access to the Department of Conservation Hugh Crawford Reserve. Normally there is little easy access into the reserve from Ngunguru Road. There is good parking at our place and one can explore the reserve from the boardwalk.

It is nice to know others are using my Waiotoi Estuary bush track.

Bananas!

I am getting excited. This is our second banana bunch. I can hardly wait. Our bees are feasting on the nectar too. (Hilton)

Rain at last and Autumn Harvest

The rain came. The most significant since December. Enough to make the Californian Quail seek shelter by our front door.


Quail sheltering at our front door

We have also had the best pumpkin harvest ever with more to come.

Organic Squash and Australian Butter Pumpkin cross with whatever.



The Mackerel Forest Track - Te Araroa

Toady we walked the Mackerel Forest Trail from Ngunguru Ford Road to Pataua North Road. This Trail is one small part of the great Te Araroa Trail from Cape Reinga at the top of the North Island to Bluff at the southern end of the South Island.

Much of the Mackerel Forest Track is through clear felled pine forest. However, the valleyalong the Waitangi River and the Taheke River is quite lovely. Very peaceful and nice and cool on a hot day as it wanders along beside these streams through native bush. There was an abundance of bird life. Especially notable on the trail were fantails, tui and yellowhammers.

Ohuatahi - Pataua North

On Sunday Tahi Honey had an open day as they do every Easter Sunday. This is free for everyone. While we are interested in bees the real attraction here is the hiking the well organised trails over the 700 or so acres of bush, pasture and wetlands that Tahi have developed. It has been made into a wonderful parkland.

The most spectacular walk is up to the top of Ohuatahi, the highest point on the land where one has views of the Pataua Estuary, North up the coast to Ngunguru Bay and South to Whangarei Heads area including the Maro Tiri Islands.

OhuaTahi

View North from Ohuatahi

View to Pataua

Pampas - The weed

Our bees think that that weed we all love to get rid of (Pampas grass) is a good supply of pollen. There is 12 bees in first photo below.

Bananas One Week Later

I can hardly wait!

The Bees love the flowers too.

Bees and Bananas

What a summer. It is dry, dry, dry and fine, warm and sunny. A real old fashioned summer.
Whats new? Melva has been mulching and watering the Banana palms and now one has started to flower. It already has one hand of bananas forming. Fantastic! Can't wait to start eating them.

 
It is fruit bottling time of the year so we have been busy preserving peaches and pears, tomatoes. The garden started cranking up late this year as it was cold before Christmas.

Bumble Bee House

We also have another beehive and today Hilton made a bumble bee house that we have down by our garden.

Because it was nice and hot and dry the whole Califirnian Quail family survived. They raised 10 chicks. At the moment they are roaming all over Rattys Landing and are fun to watch. They are almost fully grown now.