Checking out our own back yard

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Maybe not literally our own back yard, but compared to many of the places we have been, this long weekend was just up the road.

Our own backyard, just up the road and right up our alley? Too many cliches already! But a slow cruise in the kombi, stopping where and when we wanted, loads of long walks along loads of long beaches (and some not so long beaches), exploring new places, spending time in the fresh air, sitting out under the stars (until we got too cold) - totally right up our alley!!

Like many travellers we've spoken to, there is so much locally (and throughout NZ) that we haven't seen yet, we are too busy heading off to far flung places that sometimes we forget where we live and how amazing it is. Yes, there is a lot of Northland that we haven't explored yet. Much of it because we cant take the dogs, and it somehow seems wrong to go camping for the weekend and leave them behind. So this long Easter weekend we packed a change of clothes, some food and the dogs, and headed north to check out a few places we haven't been to / haven't been to for a while.

Tokerau Beach

We left home mid morning on Good Friday, slightly later than we planned, but we did enjoy the lazy lie in! We detoured through Paihia to drop off a phone that our last couch surfer left behind, the followed SH10 up the coast. Impressively, we were far from the slowest vehicle on the road, and even managed to overtake a couple of times!

Some of the beach side parking spots were a bit crowded, so we followed a random road off highway 10 hoping to find a quieter beach. We went past a couple of houses and some fields of cows, and found the road petering out by a mangrove enclosed 'beach'. But we werent alone, there was another family there enjoying the shallow warm water. By the time we had finished lunch though, they had packed up and moved on and we had the place to ourselves. We went for a walk through the shallows round the mangroves, and even the water fearing Lulu came with us until it got deeper than her belly.

We were heading for the Tokerau Beach campground, as recommended to us by Brian and Pam. But such is the way things with us work, we never made it there. It was still early and we didnt want to set up camp just yet, so we headed down another side road. This lead us, as we'd hoped, to the bottom end of Tokerau Beach.

What we found there was a big reserve right on the beach, just a line of very low dunes then sand and sea. This reserve went quite a way along the waterfront, and despite some signs stating no camping or campervanning, there were a lot of vans. When we got there, they were mainly big ones, but by the time dusk came around, there were smaller vans and tents too. So, "by the time dusk came around", you'd be right if you guessed that we hung around and added our van to the ones scattered along the reserve. Sorry Pam and Brian, we didnt check out the campground you'd recommended, we found ourselves an alternative! Maybe you'd like to try it next time you are up that way!

Before we settled in for the night, we just parked up and locked up, going for a walk along the beach. The dogs were in their element, chasing all those new smells, running from dune to water and back, ignoring all the seagulls for a change, while we spent too much of our time watching out for the 4WDs and motorbikes haring up and down the sand. There was not a heap of hard packed sand, the tide had only recently turned, and we didnt want to dogs to suddenly dart in front of something bigger and faster than them. To give the drivers / riders credit though, they did slow down a bit when coming past.

We went back to the van for a welcome drink and snack, and some time out from the sun. Then early evening saw us heading back through the trees behind the reserve for a "quick walk" before dinner. A couple of hours later... We found a series of tracks, two freshwater lakes, and lots of rabbits to chase. There was one big lake with easy access and wide tracks through the dunes. We kept on wandering, following two excited rabbit smell chasing dogs, until we came to a second, smaller lake that we couldn't get to. By now hot and tired, we turned around and went back to the first lake for the hairy two amongst us to cool off again. Julius went into the water and just laid down, we didnt rush him!

We had a nice dinner accompanied by the sound of waves crashing on the beach and the breeze gently blowing through the pines. In fact, all evening and the couple of times we woke during the night, there was the great background noise of waves and wind in trees.

The following morning we went back along the beach for 30-40 minutes then found a track that went into the dunes. This ran parallel to the one we were on the evening before. Eventually we turned round and looked for a track joining back so we could go to the lake again. The dogs went straight in the water again, and Colin wasn't far behind, once he'd stripped down to his boxers.

Tokerau Beach to Rawene

We tidied away the breakfast dishes and pulled the roof down, and headed further up the Karikari peninsular. We again drove to the end of the road, but couldnt stop as it was a DOC reserve and dogs were prohibited. We made our way along another side road to a small settlement called Rangiputa. Again going to the end of the road (is there a trend here?!), we found what at first appeared to be a small reserve, or marginal strip. Avoiding the deep sand, we looped round on the grass to a nice spot under a tree, planning a lunch break. We'd barely been there five minutes when another campervan turned up, and failed to avoid the deep sand. Foolishly, the driver kept flooring it, forwards and backwards, trying to get out but only digging himself further in. By the time we managed to get him to stop, he'd buried his rear axle, and was going nowhere. Luckily there was a local nearby with his tractor, and after he'd taken his boat home, he came back and pulled the hapless tourist out of the sand.

Thinking we'd go for a quick walk before lunch, we wandered along the grassy strip, and found that the track went round the corner and along to another parking area and a bigger beach. We found more no camping / campervanning signs and more vans parked up. Of course, there was no way to know if these people had moved in or were like us, stopping for lunch. The beach wasnt very big, but was one of the busiest we'd seen for a while.

It was a bit early to go back to the Tokerau Beach reserve and park up, as tempting as it was, so we headed south-west looking for somewhere else to stop for the night. We re-fuelled in Kaitaia and headed towards Ahipara. For some reason we decided to keep going on the road to Kohukohu till we found another reserve or campground.

This road forms part of the Twin Coast Discovery route round Northland, but there is very little to see, and even less to do. We did our usual following side roads, but found little apart from poorly sealed roads and run down farms. We stopped at one home stay place that offered camping, but thought that $24 for a patch of metal to park on and access to a toilet was a bit steep. We found no where else to park up, and had made it all the way to Kohukohu and the ferry to Rawene. Thinking that maybe we should have pulled up early and stayed at Tokerau Beach, we took the ferry across the Rawene and paid for a night at the camp ground there. While it was great to have a hot shower and flush toilet, they charge too much for a patch of metal with no view. It was like parking in a car park with electric hook ups. And we only too the powered option because it was the same price as unpowered, and all the unpowered sites were full. There was no where to put the dogs 'tie downs' either, they need softish earth to screw into, not metal. But enough moaning, the water was good and hot, just a lame flow due to drought cut backs.

Koutu Boulders

After a morning ramble round Rawene, following a board walk through the mangroves looking at the remains of a mill (stumps in the ground) and smelling the sulphurous odour of rotting timber, and joining the cafe crowd for a smoothie or bowl of water (the dogs were served before I'd even paid for our order, we had to wait about 15 minutes for our drinks!), we headed on to the original aim of this mini road trip.

We'd seen a small article in the paper or magazine about some boulders at Koutu, near Opononi, big round ones like at Moraki in the SI, and the German couple we camped with last weekend also told us about them. So we thought we'd try and find them.

After a couple of wrong turns, and a quick stop to re-attach an air filter to the top of a carburettor, we found the small parking area and track to the beach. The tide was on its way in, and was a bit high to see many of the bigger boulders, but we saw enough to get us planning to return later. We walked as far along the beach as we could without getting too wet, posed by a smallish giant marble, then headed into Opononi for lunch. Or as it turned out, lunch, a siesta, another walk along the beach, and an ice cream.

The Koutu boulders are examples of "concretions", or hardened nodules that form within sedimentary rocks. The word concretion comes from Latin and means “grown together”. The boulders / concretions are composed of the same material as the surrounding rock and form when a cementing mineral binds grains of sediment into a cohesive mass. It has been estimated that the largest of the boulders may have taken 5 million years to grow. The boulders are found on both sides of the harbour, and are numerous beneath the surface of the surrounding land.

The boulders on the beach have been released from their softer host rock by erosion and have simply rolled down and accumulated on the beach. So why are they spherical? The most likely explanation is that a small core rolled around on the sediment on the ocean floor and grew bigger much like a snowball does. We could see the core of some of the boulders that have split in half. One quite clearly had one half with a semi circle cut out in the middle, the other half had a similarly sized semi circle sticking out of it.

We got back to the boulder beach at about 5.30pm and parked up a little off the parking area, at the end of a rutted grassy track. Places like this are why we will never lower the van! The tide was almost right out and we could walk further along the beach and find some of the bigger lumps of round rock.

The dogs were exhausted when we got back to the van, barely eating their dinner, and they just curled up in the back of the van, snoring gently. Having changed the clocks the night before, it seemed like it got dark really early, and being almost as tired as the dogs (in their exploring, they would have run twice as far as we walked), we called it a night early. Besides, we'd done the sudoku, the code cracker and half the cross word.

Back home again

There isnt much to write under this heading. We got up early, walked along the beach again, packed up the van and came home. We didnt want to leave it too late to drive home in case the traffic was bad, but it wasnt too bad. Once again, we werent the slowest on the road, and it was pretty easy going all the way home. While we cleaned out the van and did some house work, the dogs laid down on their cushions and went back to sleep. Its now after dinner time, and they have barely moved since we've been home!

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Photos

We loved the messages on some of the porta loos
We also found "The job isnt finished until the paperworks done"

The mighty Karen can push the less mightly Colin out of the photo
(or did the camera slip?!)

Comments

[Annette Owens]

Thanks for sharing
Hey Guys, what wonderful pics! I loved the porta loo sayings(smile). Wow, what boulders and marbles... The dogs are having just as great as time as you too(giggle). Take care and continue to enjoy. Warmest, Annette

[Ferdi and Talita]

Pretty sunset pic
I love the sunset photo!