Wow – what a busy couple of weeks we have had since the last
blog entry. So busy that there has not been a lot of time to actually sit down
and write a blog. The emphasis on this part of the trip has definitely been
beaches. While the South Island of New Zealand has the market cornered on
awesome mountain tramping, the North Island and Australia come out the winners
for the most amazing beaches and coastline.
We flew to Auckland, picked up our rental car and
immediately headed for the coast, without ever even seeing the city except from
afar. We first went to the west coast a little north of Auckland to the surfing
community of Piha beach. Unfortunately, the rainy weather we had been having in
the south followed us to the north – but at least it was now warmer. After a
wet night in the tent, the weather cleared enough to enjoy the rugged headlands
and sandy beaches the next morning. There were lots of Aucklanders out to enjoy
the day as well. It was a surf club day, so all these little kids were running
around doing surf drill competitions. They really get kids comfortable in the
water at an early age here.
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| Piha in the rain |
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| Piha beach headlands |
Later in the day we headed farther north and checked out
Bethell’s Beach – recommended to us by friends of a friend as one of their
favorite places. It did not disappoint us – a beautiful pristine beach –
perfect for a long walk. We also checked out a small inland lake in the area
that you had to hike to. We were shocked when the trail led us over this
amazing area of sand dunes. It was like a hundred acres of sand which formed a
tall hill, completely surrounded by forest, with a lake at the bottom. Of course,
Tammara went for a swim.
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| Crossing the giant dune |
From here our plans were very loose and we weighed a few
options of how to spend our limited time… head to the very north tip of the
island, hike out overnight to a light house on Cape Britt, or even go back
south and try to do part of another Great Walk. After much debate we decided to
go to the Bay of Islands region and camp on the island of Urupukapuka. This is
an amazing part of the northeast coast with beautiful small islands, turquoise
bays and rocky headlands. We took a boat from the tourist town of Pahia about
an hour out into the bay and got dropped off on Urupukapuka. The entire island
is a national park. There are no roads, so all the camping is accessed by boat
or by a wonderful network of trails.
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| Urupukapuka |
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| Over-looking campground |
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| Urupukapuka headlands |
Since it is an island, there has been an ongoing project to
eradicate all the invasive predators to protect the native birds. New Zealand
evolved without any mammal predators, so the birds did not evolve strategies to
protect themselves. With the introduction rats and weasels the bird populations
were devastated. Through trapping and poisoning the mammals the bird numbers
are starting to come back.
From Urupukapuka we worked our way back to Auckland for a
late afternoon flight to Brisbane, Australia. We had intentionally scheduled the
trip in the order we did to be farther south while it was still warm and then
to go north as the season moved towards the southern hemisphere winter. This
also allowed us to be in Brisbane to visit Tammara’s cousins over Easter.
Yes, Tammara has cousins in Australia…Her father grew up in
Holland and after World War II he immigrated to New York. He had a brother who
immigrated to Paupa New Guinea and eventually to Australia where he raised his
family…. Tammara’s cousins. The two brothers never saw each other after the
war, but Tammara had some correspondence with the family over the years. This
trip was an opportunity to finally meet them. We arrived at Esther’s house and
within minutes felt like we had known her forever. We spent a lot of time
looking at family photo albums and comparing stories. She and her partner
George really made us feel welcome and at home.
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| Esther, Tammara and Louisa |
We used their home as a base to explore Brisbane and visit a
few area National Parks. We camped overnight at Lambington National Park which
is a rainforest situated at the top of a flat mountain. Really a unique and
beautiful place. We also visited cousin
Louisa in Mount Tamborine and she toured us around the town, National Park, and
botanical gardens. We really enjoyed the visiting and were sad to be moving on.
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| Awesome trees at Lambington National Park |
We had decided to finish the trip with a real vacation from
all this vacation. So we headed north up the coast from Brisbane to the trendy
beach town of Noosa. We arranged for three nights at an Air B&B in a
“tree-house”. It’s not really a tree house, but our bed was at tree-top level
and looked out over yet another National Park. It was really an awesome place
to wake up. We’ve had a couple of relaxing days – walking the beach, playing in the waves, canoeing the
Noosa River and just enjoying life… because that’s what it’s all about.
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| Our tree house in Noosa |
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| Sunset at Noosa beach |
