Bay of Islands - Assassination Cove and Great New Zealand PublicToilets

After leaving Whangarei and between weather windows, we made our way back up to the Bay of Islands, via Tutukaka. Tutukaka is about a 4 hours sail north from Urquart's Bay. With strong winds and a rough sea forecast from the SW, we popped into Tutukaka for two nights.  It was very pleasant to be happily, if gustily, anchored well out of the large seas we could see thundering past the harbour entrance. 

The next day with a reasonable wind direction and the seas reducing in size we finished our passage up to and around Cape Brett and into the Bay of Islands.  The sail up to Cape Brett was one of the best we've had in a long time.  We were on a close hauled beam reach, which is our fastest point of sail. A slight current was with us, we had a quite a flat sea except for 1 metre swell that gently propelled us forward another knot or 2 in speed so that at times we were making NINE KNOTS.  We never make 9 knots, so to be able do that in such comfortable conditions is memorable. 

Sailing can be more or less enjoyable for all sorts of reasons.  

A flat sea and comfortable motion and the right amount of wind from a good direction that allows you to sail a direct route, meaning that the wind not on the nose.  But we don't want it directly from behind either as a running before the wind is a slower and often very rolly point of sail. 

Warm and sunny beats cold and wet and, I think, warm and wet might well beat cold and sunny depending on just how wet and how cold we are talking about. 

Heeling at a comfortable angle so that you can make a sandwich or use the toilet with relative ease. 

Day sailing so we can both sleep at the same time and going a good enough speed so that you aren't tempted to turn on the engine or that you aren't slowing down the closer you get to your destination.  It is very discouraging to see the distance continue to reduce while your arrival time gets farther away.

Long distance sailing is similar but the length of time it takes changes your perception.  Far a start, if you arent enjoying the conditions, they'll change in time and you'll just have to wait it out.  What you will have is time to get into a routine and everything slows down.  Sailing off shore with no chance of running into any land at all for days or weeks is in itself very restful.  

With our latest New Zealand Visitor Visas extended to January 2022, we won't be going any great distances just yet.

We are currently anchored in Assassination Cove.  The website, NZPlaces.nz, under the link says of Assassination Cove,  'French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne was slayed and possibly eaten here in 1772.'  This is not why we came.

Our reason for being here is the very good protection it provides from an Easterly gale which will blow over the next 48 hours on and off.  There are about 10 boats anchored in the area as well waiting for this weather system to pass through. 

 

While we're waiting, its a good time to show you some of my favourite New Zealand things - their public Toilets.

When I made the Hundertwasser post I didn't have a photo of 'the Seed', and this was taken by my friend Susan who visited in December 2019 into January 2020.

Seed was a taste of what to expect from the finished Hundertwasser Art Centre. My interest was piqued by the artist and later when my sister, Laura, arrived in January 2020 we made a visit to the Hundertwasser Toilets in Kawakawa.

Tada! There is a tree growing through the building and a roof garden, which is a Hundertwasser theme.

The Men's

The Women's

A wonderful glass bottle window at the end of the corridor.

 

 

I'm very much looking forward to the opening of the Hundertwasser Art Centre in December.

 

Paihia, north of Kawakawa, is our Bay of Islands shopping anchorage. They got creative with one of their Wee Toilet on the waterfront.  I particularly like the roof top flower pots.

Even farther north, the Far North of Northland in the North Island, Laura and I found the Centennial Playground Kaoe.  The link gives you a 360 degree view of the playground and Church.

You can tell from the outside that it's going to be equally special on the inside and it did not disappoint.

 

The star of the mural is the Pukeko and you really can see them everywhere, real and in paint.

The Playground also had a very fine Hop Scotch board.

 

About halfway between Whangarei and Auckland are the famous Matakana Toilets.  Laura and I took an enourmous detour to visit them after spending the morning watching sheep shearing at Sheep World.

The detour was worth it. Perched above the Matakana River, carpark and picnic area and on the main Matakana roundabout is this very impressive public toilet.

It is quite a hike up from the carpark.

 

The symbols outside the toilets were handmade and each one individually made. Someone else like them too as they stole a couple. Shame on them.

The interior doesn't quite live up to the exterior, but they were clean and they worked.

Unfortunately, to get this view you have to stand in the middle of the roundabout and we have found that pedestrians are given no leaway, but I think I was worth it.

Susan and I found the most in touch with nature public toilet on a walk to Soda Springs on the foothills of Mount Tonagriro.

This really is a state of the art eco-friendly facility.  You even had to bring your own toilet paper. You are warned of that at the start of the trail.  I like that it blends in so well the its environment and has guy wires to stop it from toppling over a strong wind.

Last but nearest and dearest to the hearts of Susan, Laura and myself are the Helensville Public Toilets. 

State Highway 16 passes through Helensville and is an alternative route, which avoiding the Auckland City Centre, and a convenient stop between Whangarei and Auckland Airport.  The drive from the east coast to the west coast is a lovely change from State Highway 1 and all its roadworks. These roadworks have been underway since we arrived in Nov 2019. In their defense, it can't be easy widening and repairing roads in a country that was formed by volcanism.  In fact it's hard, damn hard.

On the way south from Whangarei, you take a right at Wellsford onto SH 16.  State Highway sounds very grand when it is two lanes only as are most of the SHs outside of those servicing Auckland or Wellington. The road winds its way over ridge backs, down into valleys, over rivers and past fields with many places to stop and look at the views. 

About halfway to Helensville if you keep you a look out to the west you will see a large areas of grazing pastures scattered with at least 20 sculptures large enough to be seen as you drive by. 

The two in this photo are easy to see.

I think there are four in this one.  From left to right - 1) the four uprights, 2) the back figure on the hill top, 3) a yellow cone like thing, and 4) the red lump on the far right.

I read that the land isn't open to the public except on very rare occasions as it is a working farm.

It didn't occur to me to take a photo at the time of the Helensville Public Toilets as they look like just any block of three stainless steel toilets, but they are very much more than that. With a press of a button the door glides open.  Another press to close it and a calm and reassuring voice tells you how the toilet operates and that the door will open in 10 minutes time, ready or not.  Then the music swells and you have the pleasure of listening to an instrumental version of the What the World Need Now Is Love Sweet Love. 

I never listened to the end, but thought you might like to.

This link opens in Google Maps and Helensville Public Toilets.  The link opens in google maps and if you look left you will eventually see the coffee shop with the date scones that Tim was very fond of.

 

We are still anchored in Assination Cove.  There is still a gale blowing but we are well protected and though we have experienced winds of 30 knots, gusting 40 occasionally it is due to calm down this evening.  We are anchored in about 5 metres of water with 80 metres of chain.  Lots of chain keeps the anchor being plucked out of the seabed because of strong gusts and that in turn means that every horizontal tug on the anchor by the swinging of the boat causes the anchor to bury itself further and further into the seabed.  

We aren't going anywhere! We will probably have to drive Larus over and around the anchor to loosen it from the mud before we can haul it up.  .

 

 

Hundertwasser

 

Since we first arrived in Whangarei in late 2019, I've been fascinated by the building of The Hundertwasser Art Centre. From a berth in Basin Marina, you are always aware of it on the cityside of the Hatea River. We've seen almost all of the building of it and I was a rather disappointed that the date for completion was December 2021.  At the time I accepted that there was just no way we would still be in NZ two years times and yet here we are for the foreseeable future.

The last few months of building work had been the most interesting.

 

 The wooden pier from the first photo, much of which was condemned, is being replaced with a new boardwalk but that is still to be completed.

 

This video isnt's really about the building work as it's there in the background I decided to include it.  In the autumn, once the marina is less full of boatrs, dredging work begins and goes on for a number of weeks.  The river silts up quite badly and this is done yearly.  The tug and digger on the barge work together to manuevre themselvers into position.  A post is driven into the river bed to keep them in place and the dredging begins.  They do this between all the pontons as well the main path of the river through the marina.

Last Friday the golden cupola that would sit atop the tower was to arrive by barge in the early morning.  We booked into the marina for the festivities.  The cupola was brought by barge in the early morning. By the time I was up at 7 it was already there.

 

Freidrich Hundertwasser Biography 

I selected one event for each year of the biography in case you thought his biography might be dull.

1928 - Born 15 December in Vienna as Friedrich Stowasser

1936 - Attends the Montessori School in Vienna for one year.  His report refers to his unusual sense of colour and form.

1949 - Develops his own style and adopts the name Hundertwasser.

1958 - Reads his Mouldiness Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture at a symposium in Seckau monastery on 4 July.

1967 - Nude Speech for The Right to the Third Skin at Galerie Hartmann, Munich.

1976 - Sails on board the Regentag from Tahiti via Rarotonga to New Zealand.

1983 - Designs a flag for New Zealand, the Koru, an unfurling fern.

1993 - Paints in New Zealand, works on the Hundertwasser Bible project.

2000 - Dies of heart failure on Saturday, February 19, in the Pacific, on board of Queen Elizabeth 2. In accordance with his wishes, he is buried in harmony with nature on his land in New Zealand, in the Garden of the Happy Dead, under a tulip tree.

I CLOSE MY EYES HALFWAY
JUST AS WHEN I CONCEIVE PAINTINGS
AND I SEE THE HOUSES DUNKELBUNT
INSTEAD OF UGLY CREAM COLOUR
AND GREEN MEADOWS ON ALL ROOFS
INSTEAD OF CONCRETE.

I AM LOOKING FORWARD
TO BECOME HUMUS MYSELF
BURIED NAKED WITHOUT COFFIN
UNDER A TREE
ON MY LAND IN AO TEA ROA.
Hundertwasser, 1979

 

Waiheke Island

We're still waiting for good weather to head back up to Whangarei.  June 1st is the start of winter here in New Zealand.  We have had the odd day of wonderful weather but then another weather system foloowed by another weather system appears and we decide to stay a little longer.

We are on a mooring in Maitiatia Bay on the west coast of Waiheke Island.  It is extremely convienient for the ferry to Auckland, the local Waiheke buses and many walking tracks.

We had come down to Waiheke to meet sailing friends we had first met in New England, Simon and Kim.  We were anchored near them near in Newport, Rhode Island and stopped by in the dinghy to marvel at their spectular transom. It was wide, easy to board and lead into an equally spectular cockpit.  We last saw them in Trinidad. 

We had planned to have lunch with them at the Mudbrick Vineyard restaurant in Waiheke.  As we were days early, we scoped out the location.  It was a 30 minute walk from Maitiatia Bay though woods, farms and vineyards.

At this time of year the sun always very low in the sky, but it still is strong enough to suck all the colour and detail out of your photos if you're not in a position to get it behind you.  I'd have to catch Tim and that seldom happens.

 

 

The views really are spectacular whether you are admiring the fields of vines and olive trees or looking at the Auckland Sky Tower in the distance.

The day felt especially fine thanks to the rainy days that had preceded it.

I was really pleased to finally see why the New Zealand Fantail is forever fluttering along with walkers.  They take advantage of us stirring up insects for them to eat.  This is the first time I was actually able to see the swarm of gnats that they were picking out of the sky one by one.

 This was not an easy video to take.  They are so fast! 

 

 

Looking into Maitiatia Bay. Larus one of furtherest boats, just to the right of centre.

 There are often notices informing us of the history of the area. 

We hope to do more walking on Waiheke before we get our weather window to head north.

We did take the opportunity to visit Auckland for the day.  It is just a 25 minute ferry ride from Maitiatia.  We went off peak for $35 return. 

We have very few reminders as we go about our day that Covid19 is such an enormous problem elsewhere in the world.  We haven't needed to use public transportation and we spend most of our time in less populated areas or at anchor.  We use the Covid Tracer App on our phones whenever we visit public places and I carry 4 masks in my backpack, but that is it.  Travelling on the ferry was the first time we had been required to use them in over a year.

We arrived in Auckland well before anything of the shops opened, thanks to our ticket restrictions, and we had plenty of time to wander around the city.  

We decided to start with a coffee and not fancying a crowded high street shop we wandered up toward the University. We found a cafe under the Ellen Melville Centre on a nice little square and went inside.  

The urn of hot water and instant coffee and tea bags on the counter were a hint. It  took a while, however, to figure out that we had wandered into a community centre.  By then it felt rude to leave haveing chatted with others helping themselves to a hot drink, so we made and drank our free coffee, rinsed our cups and put them in the dishwasher tray as per the sign, thanked the people who worked there and went on our way.

There aren't many places in Auckland, or Waiheke Island even, where you can't see the Sky Tower.  It is a great landmark for navigating the streets.

Much of the construction along the waterfront is complete but there are still packets of major building work going on.  I suspect that they are replacing an intersection on a steep hill with a tunnel and road over the top.  Auckland is a very hilly city thanks to its 53 dormant Volcanoes.

We walked up through Albert Park to the University Clock Tower and it went like this.

Up a steep path past this extemely tall tree with aerial roots. 

It might be a very tall and straight Pohutukawa, but I'm doubtful. The Pohutukawa is also known as the New Zealand Christmas Tree because it flowers red and white in the NZ summer, Christmas time.  It isn't normally that tall and usually spreads out wider from the base, but its the only one I could find with the aerial roots.

The fact that the next three trees are all Ombu trees, native to South America, seem to supports that doubt. These might not be endemic to New Zealand, but they are very impressive.

Carry on up hill ducking under the low hanging branch across the path.

 

Pause to catch your breath and marvel at the roots of this massive tree.

 

Shelter from the rain in the hollow trunk of the topmost ombu tree.

And finally, past  the floral clock across the road to ....

 

The University of Auckland's most iconic building, The Clocktower

We were pleased that the next walking we did was down hill on the whole to the Auckland Bridge.

If we didn't have flowers already onboard, it would ahve been very tempting to buy some here.

I expect I'm not the first tourist to have taken this photo.

We had a lot of low cloud, a heavy mist of rain that made everything very wet, but it made lovely reflections. We looked briefly in a shop and then turned around and headed back.

Follow that tower!

I don't even know the name of the company that thought to use this quip, but it did make me laugh.

Larus on her mooring.

  

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

 And last but by no means least...

We had a most enjoyable lunch at the Mudbrick Restaurant with Simon, Kim, Ian, Ann, me and Tim. I'm letting a picture say a thousand words.  It is the type of dining we don't do ever! : )

Yesterday, we had a lovely afternoon with an ex-work colleague of Tim and an equally memorable meal in their quite amazing mountain-side house.  We're looking foward to having them aboard Larus and have our fingers crossed for a dry warm day.

Unless it stops raining, this will be the last from Waiheke.

Olive picking in Maungakaramea

Yesterday we sailed down from Urquart's Bay to Kawau Island after a week in Marsden Cove Marina.

A number of our friends were preparing their boats to be left on the hard in the marina and we came to visit and help out.  We also had a full week of wet and windy weather.  Even some the fishing boats came into the marina.  They often anchor out in Urquart's Bay but Gale force winds and threat of up to 7 metre swell drove them in. 

Our sail down yesterday was in a gap between weather systems. We arrived in the long well protected bay of Kawau Island in plenty of time for dinner and well before today's blustery conditions. This photo is from one of the Weather forecasting apps that we use with added route information. The course I've drawn is less direct than the one Tim actually steered.

Several weeks ago now, we visited friends, Rob and Jan, who have an olive orchard to help them harvest the olives.

This photo was taken in December, which is Spring here, when Tim and I visited to look after their dog, Indy.  It's a lovely part of the country.  

Rob and Jan had laid out the nets under the trees and had started picking before we arrived.  We had taken the wrong turning off the motorway and added a very pleasant hour to our journey on some extremely hilly and winding picturesque roads.

They have two types of olive one gives a creaminess to the oil and the other gives it a peppery bite. Together they make a very tasty interesting flavour.

There are a number of ways to remove the olives from the trees. The riper the olives are the easier they come off the tree, more oil can be pressed from them, but the more likely they are to be eaten by birds.

The trees were a mixed bunch. Some had loads of olives, some not so many. Some had all green olives and some had a mix of green and the riper black ones.  When to pick is not always a straight forward decision - see When do I pick my olives for more information.

Tim picking olives and Rob using and electric rake to knock them down.  The rake vibrates fasts and shakes the olives off the branches.  This works best on ripe olives.

 

 

 

 

There is also a machine that that does it, but your olives would have to be really ripe for the machine to work well.

Most of the picking was done by hand, and Jan and Rob had a good of people to help over the 4 days of picking.

 

Having lots of people helping is good idea as, though it is very picturesque, it's also hard work. 

 

There is something about olive trees that is very special.  They are often planted in peoples gardens because they are such an attractive tree. They are even prettier with a scattering of black olives.

Tim and I first met in Greece back in '86 and next to the road between Frikes, where we lived, and the nearest village, Stavros, were fields of mature olive trees and old stone walls. This could explain why I'm so partial to them.

 

 

Once the olives have been knocked off the tree, the nets are gathered up and the olives are manoeuvred into piles.

 

 

 

Olives are remarkably heavy and smaller piles are definitely better.

 Jan gathering up the olives into the green baskets and picking out the worst of the branches.  Most of the leaves and branches are dealt by blowing them out of the olives before they pressing.

The green baskets are emptied into large orange baskets.

 

 The orange baskets are transfered into the truck that will transport them the olive press.

Once the olives are picked they need to be kept cool and dry and taken to be pressed as soon as possible.

You've probably notice a quality control issue in some of the photos.  Hand picking olives is oily work and no amount of wiping will remove it from your hands or camera lens.  My camera is water proof so no harm done but I wish I'd noticed earlier. The leggings I wore still have oily knees months later.

 

The pattern the olives formed in the nets as they weighed down the grass look just like the rippled sand you often see in shallow water at the beach.

This was a good tree, loaded with olives.  It is very satisfying to pull your hands down the branches and to hear the heavy rain patter of olives hitting the ground. Very satisfying, indeed.

 

 

This photo of the watering trough for the cows and horse makes me laugh.  

 

That it ended up looking like a psychedelic hallucination has everything to do with olive oil on the lense and nothing at all to do with the pile of field mushrooms Jan's daughter had collected and left in the shade of the trough.

From when I started this blog, we have now moved on to Waiheke Island.  We are well placed in a bay on the west coast of the island.  We have the ferry terminal to Auckland and we can catch a bus outside the terminal to tour to the island. Now we just have to wait for some more dry weather.