Category: New Zealand, Winter 2020

We drove south from Paihia to Piha for our final night in New Zealand.  On the way we stopped in a very small town for lunch, and they had a “Wharfinger” pizza on their menu.

In my prior life before retirement I was the Chief Wharfinger for the Port of Oakland, and nobody ever knew what in the hell that meant (basically like a commercial real estate manager mixed with a city government job).  We didn’t try the pizza because it sounded a little strange…..just like the name.

We also ran across this waterfall just outside of the city of Whangarei (pronounced Fangary….it’s a Maori to English translation screw-up).  Wh=F….gotcha.

Piha is a quiet little beach community that is just under an hours drive away from Auckland airport, so it’s perfectly situated for a stay before our flight home.  Here is the view from our place in the hills above the coastline.

Piha is New Zealand’s most famous surfing beach, and we saw quite a few surfers while we were there.  The beach has black iron sand and it’s supposedly very crowded in the summer time.  We only saw a handful of people on the beach.

Walking among the rock formations we ran across this hole through the rocks where the surf was running all the way through.

There is a short 1km hike near the beach to Kitekite Falls.  It’s worthwhile for the falls as well as the hike through some very dense NZ bush.

My attempt at a selfie.

The falls are pretty impressive but I would love to see it when they aren’t in the middle of a drought.

We had dinner at a nearby restaurant called Elevation, with an awesome view of Auckland.  We were even treated to a bit of a rainbow during dinner.

I really liked the label on this bottle of wine.  It helped that the wine was quite good.

During our drive to Piha we heard on the radio that NZ was shutting it’s borders to all but NZ citizens.  We knew the flight we were taking the next morning was coming from SF, so we were concerned United may cancel our flight, but fortunately that didn’t happen.  We were very happy when our flight took off.  Here is a last shot of Auckland out the window.

Getting through Customs at the airport was surprisingly fast.  Nobody was being screened in any way, and Customs only asked us two questions (any fruit? any alcohol?).  No paperwork to fill out, no health check, nothing.  We made it from the plane to the exit in 20 minutes.  I will say that we saw some people being screened before we boarded in Auckland, but it must have been random or they were simply looking for anybody who might appear sick.  I was expecting more of a vetting process based on how this is all playing out.

I am working on one last post regarding things we found interesting about NZ, as well as an update on my efforts to cancel 6 weeks worth of bookings in Australia.  It’s been quite interesting to see how some companies have reacted, both positive and negative.  Thanks for reading!

 

We kept our rental car despite how HUGE it is (never get a Toyota Prado in NZ….way too big!), and drove north from Auckland to Paihia, a little town in the area known as the Bay of Islands.  Enroute we stopped in the little beach town of Orewa for lunch.  We happened upon an Irish Pub, and being that it was St. Patricks Day, we walked in.  They had a bunch of Guinness stuff they were preparing to give away that night, so Kim and I both got free t-shirts and Kim got this awesome hat!

That’s a keeper!  I went into the restroom and changed into the t-shirt on the spot.  This is Guinness’ version of the NZ fern leaf.

The back side.

Wow….my hair has really turned grey in the back!  Getting fricking old!

We checked into our hotel and then drove to a little spot in Paihia called Haruru Falls.  This falls is normally more dramatic, but NZ is in the middle of one of their worst droughts in 60 years.

We saw about 50 chickens in the parking lot.  Here was a mamma with her chicks.

The little town of Russell is a 15 minute ferry ride from Paihia.  This little town is so beautiful!  There is a cool and fairly short hike that takes you up to Flagstaff Hill.

Flagstaff Hill has quite the storied history.  The hill became the focus of British and Maori relations after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 at nearby Waitangi.  To commemorate the treaty, the British built the flagstaff and started flying the Union Jack.

As is usually the case when it comes to the natives, the British immediately started breaking the treaty, which caused dissent among the Maori.  This flagstaff became the focal point.  Between 1844 and 1846, the flagstaff was repeatedly cut down by the Maori (I think it was 5 times, but I lost count), and repeatedly rebuilt by the British.  At one point the Brits sheathed it in iron and housed a contingent of troops on the site, so the Maori created a diversion in town, and when the troops rushed towards the diversion, the Maori just dug around the flagstaff and pushed it over.  It became a rotating version of “My Daddy can beat up your Daddy”.  It was last put back up by the Maori themselves in 1958, in a gesture of being at one with the Queen.  They only fly the NZ flag from it once a year, to commemorate the signing of the original treaty in February 1840.

The view of Russell harbor from the hill.

Here is Kim taking a little break on the beach in Russell.  If we had it to do over again, we would have stayed in Russell versus Paihia.  A much quieter town and it has this very historic colonial feel to it, with a lot of original buildings from when the British first arrived.

One of the “must do”s” while in the Bay of Islands is to take a boat ride out to the “Hole in the Rock”.  The first stop on the ride is Motuarohia, a little island where Capt Cook anchored the HMS Endeavour in 1769.

The Hole in the Rock is a long haul, but our ferry was moving at least 40 knots to get there.

They claim to take the ferry through the hole on calm days, but from the looks of it I don’t see how.

On the way back towards the dock, the crew searches relentlessly for dolphins.  We followed this pod for about 20 minutes.

We also fit in a bit of wine tasting in nearby Kerikeri.  The wines from Marsden were really quite good, but we are leaving shortly so we only picked up one bottle, which was quickly consumed.

We went back over to Russell for dinner on our final night.  It really is quite pleasant taking the water taxi to dinner.  Quite cheap as well, at just $13 NZ round trip per person (about $8/person USD).  Way cheaper than BART, and nobody begging for money!  Here is the view from the dock on arrival in Russell.

Next up, Piha, and then home (fingers crossed).