Awana Bay Beach, Great Barrier Island, New Zealand

Photo’s are here or you can just click on the photograph above.

The post-retirement antipodean adventure continued from Sydney to Auckland for a night at the brand new airport hotel Te Arikinui Pullman, mere steps from the terminal. The newly opened Te Kaahu restaurant on the top floor was surprisingly excellent – I would go as far as to say it was one of the best meals we’d eaten in our 6 weeks of travel to date. The following morning it was pouring with rain. We caught the shuttle bus to the domestic terminal to check in for our Barrier Air flight on one of their tiny 10 seater Cessna single-prop hopper planes to Great Barrier Island. The island is located in the outer Harauki Gulf in New Zealand’s only National Marine Park.

Every flight we had taken in Australia in the previous 6 weeks had been delayed – either by a few minutes or significantly – so it should have come as no surprise that our flight to Great Barrier Island was also delayed an hour. Once in the air, it is a quick and usually spectacular 30 minute flight to Claris airstrip with Barrier Air. This is the kind of small airline which frequently gets delayed, especially in bad weather and where the check in staff know all of the islanders traveling back and forwards from Great Barrier Island to Auckland. It is the kind of airline where weight really matters and the pilot personally loads your baggage into the various compartments of the hold to ensure the plane is correctly balanced. The islanders use the hopper flights like a bus service to Auckland where they travel for medical care and the sort of day to day amenities which those of us who do not live on a tiny island 90km from the mainland all take for granted.

Aotea (the native name for Great Barrier Island) is totally “off the grid” – it is wild, noticeably uncrowded and utterly peaceful. We first came here 15 years ago with our friend Gary and we loved it so much we have wanted to return ever since. The flight into Claris is a bucket list flight alone. It would be no big surprise to find yourself seated next to a local resident with livestock sitting on his or her lap! 😉 On approach to the island’s tiny airstrip, the plane descends over the huge crescent-shaped expanse of Kaitoke Beach and lands on the airstrip just past the beach narrowly avoiding scraping the top of the sand dunes. On a clear day the views over the rocky headland and the glittering waters of the bay are glorious. The last time we flew in 15 years ago, it was a blue sky day – the sun was shining and the sea was so clear that we could see a pod of whales swimming in the bay way below. Back then, the pilot asked us if we wanted to swoop down to get a closer look which was a first! You don’t get that kind of service with American Airlines! 😉

This time we were flying in torrential rain so we missed the bucket list landing. We were drenched walking across the runway to Aotea Car Rentals at the airstrip and, to add insult to injury, the Rav 4 we had booked almost a year earlier was the oldest, filthiest and most battered rental car we’ve ever driven. Options for rental cars are not exactly numerous on the island so beggars can’t be choosers but our 4 wheel drive for the trip was held together by 300,000 km of dirt, dust and grime. When Geoff turned on the ignition, the fan belt screeched at an alarming decibel level; it was so deafening it scared the birds out of the trees. The car bore all the signs of desperately needing an overhaul at the local garage (or preferably being retired from active service altogether). On the bright side, although we had a lot of off-roading to do – it only needed to remain roadworthy for another 4 days 😁

First stop – the only pharmacy on the island for some non-urgent supplies which is 1 minute away from the airstrip in Claris . Theoretically, it should have been open, but it wasn’t. There was a hand-written sign taped to the door: “Apologies – had to catch an early flight and the owner’s gone fishing” 😁

Just as there are no choices with rental car companies on the island, neither are there a plethora of food stores. We stopped in the only one on the island in the tiny enclave of Tryphena – Stonewall General Store and Bottle Shop. We picked up a few things for our 4 nights which cost more than the equivalent for 14 days of food supplies in Australia. Obviously, everything has to be shipped or flown into the island so prices are unsurprisingly sky high and food selections are pretty depressing. But what did it matter … we were finally back on Great Barrier Island!

We followed the narrow winding road uphill out of Tryphena, passing the rustic wood shack workshop of Peter Edmonds (a renowned NZ wood carver from whom I’d bought a hand carved wooden bowl hewn from the bark of locally reclaimed timber during our visit 15 years ago). He has lived and worked on Great Barrier Island for 40 years and the workshop was instantly recognizable – it hadn’t changed a bit. In many ways time just seems to stand still on Great Barrier Island!

The road turned off right onto a steep dirt track for which a 4-wheel drive vehicle is absolutely essential. After another slow, bumpy couple of miles dodging wildlife darting under our wheels our accommodation came into view at the very end of the track. We had booked into XSPOT Cliff House for the next 4 nights, 8km from Tryphena – in the middle of nowhere. The house teeters on the top of a high cliff. Whilst the location is undeniably stunning, the accommodation was a little rough around the edges. The views are incredible with the biggest skies we’ve ever seen. The huge picture windows are designed to take advantage of the miles of open sea and rocky cliffs spreading out around you but the house also gets very, very, very hot … like a greenhouse. There is no AC and no ceiling fan. Power is a very precious commodity way out there in the boonies!

“Off the grid” when you’re living on top of the world, means if it rains then you have water and if it doesn’t, then you don’t; there is very little hot water (sometimes none at all) and due to the pitifully low water pressure there was no chance of a power shower 😉 There was enough power to charge your phone & a laptop but, as warned ahead of time, a hairdryer would bring down the power supply for the 2 houses up on the clifftop. We’re very spoilt, of course. We live in a world with great abundance (for which we are very grateful) so from time to time it can come as somewhat of an awakening to find that basic necessities (for us at least) like clothes washers, toasters, dishwashers, fans and AC are not available even in first world countries like New Zealand. Perhaps we’ve become way too Americanized in our basic requirements – which is a distinct possibility 😉😁

There is no ATM on the island and we hadn’t had an opportunity to exchange any cash since arriving in New Zealand the night before. This is unfortunate especially for those businesses which don’t accept credits cards – like the Elephant Gallery which was lovely. We could have arranged an international bank transfer for my proposed purchase I suppose, but that seemed like an awful lot of effort for a couple of handmade greetings cards! 😉

Anyway, we weren’t on GBI to shop. We were there to decompress, do some hiking and walk the wild and empty beaches.

Although we had arrived in thick cloud and heavy rain (and, quite unbelievably departed in exactly the same atrocious weather) we had 3 full days of sunshine and blue skies in between. On our first morning we set off heading towards the north of the island. Driving on GBI takes a very long time, not because of traffic – there isn’t any – but the roads are very narrow, winding and steep with sharp switchbacks which slow you down considerably. In addition we’d managed to time our trip with a re-surfacing project rolling out across the island. In 4 days we were stuck twice for 40/45 minutes at a “STOP” sign while the roads and single-lane bridges were being resurfaced. Traffic couldn’t move in either direction. This does allow plenty of time to get to know the locals who are stuck in the same line with nothing to do other than chinwag to the tourists … so there is always an upside 😁 It turns out that the islanders had waited 20 years to have their long decaying roads resurfaced but that this was the second time in only 3 years that they were being re-tarmacked. Apparently, in truly inefficient island style, the tarmacking company which had won the contract and completed the job 3 years earlier were now back here doing it all over again! Their original efforts broke up and were washed out into the sea in a matter of a few short months!

Anyway, once we were back in the car we drove the fabulously scenic route up through the interior of the island and along the coast road before we reached the dirt car park for our first very short walk up Windy Canyon. It is normally notoriously windy here, hence the name, but as we hauled ourselves up the steep steps to the viewpoint overlooking the surrounding hills in one direction and in the other direction, towards Whangapoua Bay, there wasn’t a single puff of wind to break the heat in the canyon.

Having seen it at a distance from the Windy Canyon viewpoint, we were now going to get much closer to Whangapoua Beach and its iconic tidal bay. We were planning to do the Harataonga Coastal Track which is considered Great Barrier Island’s premier hike. The entire trail is 7 miles one way with a 1,400 foot elevation gain. Since a 14 mile return hike with another 1,400 foot elevation gain back to the car wasn’t too tempting we decided to start from the Whangapoua Campsite end of the track and walk halfway before returning. The views over the rocky headlands and pristine sandy beaches were well worth the effort. It was a spectacular hike and we didn’t pass another hiker for the entire afternoon. Whangapoua Estuary is tidal. When we started the hike above it, we could see tiny toy town sized people way below us walking across the sand with its shallow, swirling channels of teal water. By the time we returned a few hours later the estuary was rapidly filling up with water, the narrow swirling channels had joined into one wide sweep of seawater and now would have been impassable on foot.

The following day we drove to Medlands Beach in Oruawharo Bay for a long walk and to dip a tester toe into the Pacific. Memory Rock in the centre of the beach dominates the landscape. We walked to one end, turned around and heading in the other direction we bumped into a couple on the beach who had just kayaked into shore from their yacht moored in the bay. It turned out that we had a couple of things in common – where we had both lived and travelled and so on. We parted company and finished our beach walk before deciding to go for a beer at the well-known “off the grid” Aotea Brewery. It is a craft brewery serving beer and food from a shed reminiscent of a shipping container which is located in a field a couple of streets back from the beach. The newly opened pop-up cafe serving focaccia sandwiches was unexpectedly excellent – as was the artisan beer. We saw the same couple at a table there so we joined them for lunch. It’s a small world. It turned out that we were having lunch with the founder of UK based Naked Wines and his wife which, when we thought about it later, meant that Geoff had probably contributed in some small way to the purchase of their catamaran with his monthly subscription to Naked Wines 😉😁 (they’ve been delivering dozens of bottles of wine to our front door in Florida every month for more years than I care to remember! 😉).

On our penultimate morning we woke to more huge skies and the sound of hundreds of bees buzzing around the mānuka trees on the headland in the still, warm air. Mānuka honey is very expensive and highly prized for its medicinal qualities and its production is something of a cottage industry on Great Barrier Island. Mid-December is early summer and a lovely time to visit the island when the countryside is decorated with white mānuka blossom, wild flowers and New Zealand’s famous Pohutukawa trees with their fluffy brilliant red flowers.

We spent the day exploring, walking, picnicking and swimming at Kaitoke Beach to cool down. Kaitoke is a beautiful wide beach, backed by sand dunes dotted with yellow daisies, wild flowers and blue and white agapanthus. At the Sugar Loaf headlands south end of the beach there is a tidal strip of sand between the rocky headland which divides Kaitoke and Medland beaches. At the northern end of the beach is the Kaitoke stream and swamp. We aimed for the Sugar Loaf headlands where you can sit on the rocks at the base of Sugar Loaf and swim in the calm waters before the tide turns and the strip of sand is covered once again with sea water. After 6 weeks in Australia Geoff is now fully acclimatized to swimming in chillier waters … maybe now we can visit the Caribbean without Geoff complaining that the sea is not warm enough for him 😉

A peaceful and perfectly chilled out day ended with a gigantic sweeping orange sunset, courtesy of XSPOT’s elevated location. The following morning it was dark, cloudy and threatening thunderstorms which wasn’t great news for an on-time flight departure. We had a connection to make in Auckland to fly onwards to Christchurch on New Zealand’s South island where we would spend the next 2 months or so. We really didn’t want to miss our connection.

As the rain persisted, the tiny airport terminal became more and more crowded as the 8.30am and 9am flights were both delayed, delayed and further delayed. We were getting nervous. Islanders were turning up trying to get last minute seats on one of the outgoing flights. They arrived with pets in tow and dragged huge cool boxes into the waiting room. For reasons unknown the locals don’t travel with suitcases – just giant coolers 😉 It was a hive of activity – there were negotiations and calculations and whispered discussions between the check-in lady (who knew everyone) and the pilots so that they could try to squeeze everyone onto one of the 2 flights which were likely to have air traffic control permission to leave in the stormy weather that morning. There were frantic calls with Auckland air traffic control and finally, in the midst of all that chaos, there was a break in the storm allowing a small window of opportunity to get airborne. Our pilot rushed our group of 10 onto the Cessna and we took off in weather even worse than when we’d arrived – but we made our connection from Auckland to Christchurch by the skin of our teeth (because it was also delayed! 😉).

Finally, we had made it to our very favorite region of New Zealand – the South Island 😁!