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Project Prep

by steve, on January 13th, 2011 (New Zealand, Sea Mist)

We have about a week here in Whangarei before Helen and I (without the boys who leave on Saturday – sob) head back south. We have our ferry to the south island booked for the 24th of January and don’t want to rush the trip down. There are a few boat projects that shouldn’t really be left until we come back so yesterday was really all about them.

I know some people are interested in the detail so here’s what was accomplished day 1.

Sail maker called and booked to come to boat today to talk about inspecting and servicing our current head sail, designing a better headsail and seeing if anything can be done with our shredded Code Zero (the original one). He will be here quite shortly so I’m rushing.

Rearranged our haul out date for March 24th. Yardmaster and works foreman both visited boat in afternoon to plan haul and discuss work to be done to boat (bottom paint, gelcoat patch up, anchor shield and a few other things.

Ordered shower sump float switch (just got call to say it can be picked up today).

Ordered new battery for car (current one is 9 years old and tired)

Had genset guy around to inspect generator. Fuel lines are now stiff and need replacement. Will get new replacement raw water pump and heat exchanger.

Dropped of outboard for professional service.

And a few other small items not worth mentioning.

We’re going to town on the boat at the moment. We’re up in the air with our plans for the next sailing season. One idea is to stay in the South Pacific islands north of the cyclone season in a years time. This would mean being 18 months away from major boat yards so we want everything to be as good as it can be. In general the professionals who looked at the boat yesterday said everything looked in pretty good order. But this is the best opportunity to have expert eyes and hands on the boat for a while so we’re making the best of it.

Helen attacked the pile of washing from our recent adventures and sorted out one of the boat lockers. Sam and Ben toured the town and tackled a bottle of spirits they needed to warm up their last two days here. In the evening, they went out on the town with Ian from Sea Mist. In fact John and Cherryl came over too to say goodbye to Ben and Sam. They ended up on the grass outside the boat with a bunch of locals (we think) making noise in the early hours. Seems they had a good time.

Back to Whangarei

by steve, on January 12th, 2011 (New Zealand)

We’re getting better at packing our tents so we were out of our campsite in good time. Our first stop, as planned, was the 3D maze. This turned out to be a lot of fun. The maze was made of wooden walls and included a number of overhead walkways with the maze snaking around under them. Our challenge was to make our way to each coloured corner and exit the way we came in. Ben finished first, I came second and Sam and Helen finished together. While waiting, Ben and I were given a second challenge which was to find our way through to the second exit in under 4 minutes. I made it in 2 but Ben got lost. A lot of fun all round.

The rest of the journey was simply long. We stopped for lunch along the way and Helen took over for an hour driving when I became tired. We arrived in Whangarei around 4pm and had time to move the boat onto a slip near the fishing dock. It’s quieter than the last place we slipped but a little further away from the amenities.

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I have now caught up on publishing all our recent pictures and video.

Hot and Cold Water

by KC2RIY, on January 11th, 2011 (New Zealand, Video)

We had a pretty active day here in Roturua. In the morning we visited the Te Puia Maori cultural experience. The place was set on a plot of thermally active land. We arrived well before our prebooked 10:15 cultural show so we spent a little time walking over to their main active geyser. We saw it erupt in clouds of steam and mist. To our surprise rather than explode in one big column of water it went on for quite some time. In the end we had to leave for the show before it had finished.

The show was interesting but not astounding. I think part of it is because the maoris here are a long way removed from those who performed the dances and rituals we were shown. Nevertheless we got to see how one village would approach and greet visitors, some singing and dancing including some audience participation huka dancing.

After the show we were given a guided tour of the complex. We were shown where they keep their arts of carving and weaving alive. That was pretty interesting. They had a nocturnal kiwi exhibit where we saw a pair of the strange birds moving around in an artificial night time habitat.

After a stop at a mud pool we were taken to the geyser we had seen earlier. Here we learned that if we stayed longer a second and larger geyser would eventually erupt. So stay we did and were rewarded with a finer display. The overall eruption seemed to take about half an hour.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seoWD7Mgw2U[/youtube]

We didn’t have long before our afternoon activity. We grabbed lunch and our swimming clothes before heading out of town to Waitiaki White Water Adventures for our cruise down a local class 5 river. This turned out to be a huge amount of fun. 23 tourists in 4 inflatable rafts with professional guides both in the rafts with us and in kayaks ahead of us went down 13 rapids and 3 waterfalls, the largest being a 7 meter drop. We had to work by paddling forward and backward on instruction and when necessary jamming ourselves down into the raft for the big drops. Towards the end we were allowed in the water to float down one of the rapids which added to the fun. On two occasions we paddled back into the rapids to bury the nose of the raft into the water flooding the front section making us all very wet. This was all funded by Helen’s missed sky dive so we all ended up happy.

Today we’re heading back to Whangarei. We spotted a 3D maze on the way back yesterday which we’re keen on doing today. So it’s off to breakfast and packing up the camping gear. When we get back to the boat I have plenty of pics to upload.

Rotorua

by KC2RIY, on January 10th, 2011 (New Zealand)

After three days in a motel it was off to Rotorua for some more camping. Somehow our gear had expanded further making the car seem more packed than ever. Despite this we all squeezed in and headed off. We stopped off at a free to view boiling mud pool on the way. On the spur of the moment we also stopped off at the Waimangu Volcanic Valley. It’s claim to fame was having the world’s largest boiling lake. Having seen the second largest in Dominica we’d always felt we should see the largest. Having seen both the Dominica lake was better although the walk through the Waimangu Valley was worth the time spent.

Reaching Rotorua we looked at three separate campsites before settling on the first one we found closest to town.

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In the evening we walked into town which seemed dead at that time and ate at Hell’s Pizza. They were tasty but one was insanely hot.

Tauhara Mountain

by steve, on January 9th, 2011 (New Zealand)

Very close to Taupo is Tauhara Mountain. Climbing it was hard to resist. Impossible in fact. That turned out to be our Sunday exercise.

This was not a DOC (Department of Conservation) maintained trail and was a little rougher than those we have been on recently. This made it a little more interesting. I won’t bore you with the details of the walk – the pictures say it all. At the top though we had some fine views of the crater (it is an old volcano) and the surrounding countrtside. We didn’t stay long as it was quite chilly.

We picked up some food at a bakery and at lunch beside the Huka Falls so Ben could see them. The afternoon was spent reading, relaxing and watching movies. With the free internet connection I downloaded and installed all the updates and software I could think of for my laptop bringing it fully up to date.

Today we press on to our last stop – Rotorua – before returning to Whangarei. This is the thermal capital of New Zealand so we expect to see geysers and a lot more bubbling mud.

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