Ice Diving - Tutakaka

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We headed north on State Highway One through the rush hour traffic. We were heading to Tutukaka, a small town (probably a village) on the coast, about 30 mins north of Whangerei. It was going to be quite a long drive and we weren’t best pleased to find ourselves contending with queues of traffic just trying to leave Auckland, particularly as we had arrived at the van rental place five hours prior to the van actually being ready. In short, we were grumpy. But it didn’t take long for our mood to lift when we finally reached Auckland harbour bridge. We had seen it from the boat on our harbour cruise, but we had no idea it looked so impressive from above. It was eight lanes wide and made the Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford look very slender. (Although I personally don’t think it’s nearly as attractive a structure as Dartford - yes, I did just call a bridge attractive! Oh dear!)

After an hour we finally made it out of the big city and started to get our first look at the New Zealand countryside. Green rolling hills marked with tiny ridges created by the magma from old volcanic eruptions were on every side and occasionally we would glimpse blue ocean and steep rocky cliffs in the distance. Between clumps of trees similar to what we have at home, were giant tree ferns, giving these patches of rainforest a Jurassic feel. There were a number of times when we would have liked to have stopped to admire the view, but time wasn’t on our side and we wanted to get to Tutukaka before the campsite closed, so we focused on the driving and steamed ahead to our destination.

There was something else we saw for the first time on the road that would become a regular feature of our travels around New Zealand - roadworks! But they’re not roadworks like you’d see in the UK. In NZ, when the time comes to replenish the road surface, they don’t close just one lane and repair one side of the road before starting on the other. Oh no! They cunningly fix both sides at once. Which basically means traffic must drive over the road in whatever state of repair it is in at that particular time. Usually this consists of driving very, very slowly (20-30kph) over very lose gravel. Grit splashes the sides of your vehicle, stones bounce off the windscreen and if you are really lucky the gravel pounding the underside of the van will still be rattling around 30 minutes later!

Four hours after we left Auckland, we finally arrived in Tutukaka and found the campsite where we would be spending the next 3 nights. It was set in a fantastic location in a picturesque tiny valley nestled between round hills on one side and woods and giant ferns on the other. Cows were grazing and ducks were wandering around by a brook running through the site. After dinner, we made up the bed for the first time. This basically consists of two boards and a table top rested between the two “sofas” with the sofa cushions squashed on top. The sheets are really fiddly to use and we discovered it’s a bit of a marathon to keep putting the bed together and breaking it down. We then had the fun of trying to step round each other in the tiny bit of floor area that was left. We began to wonder how our marriage would survive such confinement! We discovered pretty quickly that we would be banging our heads a lot on the shelves and cupboards lining the interior of the van. There is very little doubt that I will come home with some form of brain damage. The real question is whether anyone will notice the difference!

Our main purpose in going to Tutakaka was to scuba dive at the nearby Poor Knights Islands, which are meant to be one of the best diving sites in the world, but we needed a bit of sleep first so we spent our first morning at Tutakaka sleeping. In the afternoon we moseyed on down to the harbour to find where the company we would be diving with were based. The harbour was surprisingly large and busy compared to the size of the village. There were masts everywhere. Chris and I decided to walk up to the breakwater at the end of the harbour to see what else was around. The first thing we came to was what must be the world’s smallest botanic garden. It was about three metres square! Chris thought it was the prefect size. There was a huge fishing club a big notice board outside where people had written what they had caught that day and how big it was. There was a bloke nearby weighing a big red fish he‘d caught. There was also a combined harbour master’s office and pizzeria. An unusual combination but it seemed popular!

A big sign board explained about the significance of the Poor Knights islands. Because they are separated from the mainland, there are some unique animals and birds that live there that are not found anywhere else. This includes a giant Weta, which is a HUGE cricket (we’re talking about 10cm long). The islands are protected areas and no one is allowed to land on them without a special licence from the Department of Conservation,. This is due to the fear that rats and other introduced pests, which are ravaging the natural environment on the mainland, will take hold here and wipe out already rare and endangered species. In 1981 some of the waters around Poor Knights were designated marine reserves and subsequently all waters within 800 metres of the islands are now a marine conservation park and designated no fishing zones. I read an article about it last year in National Geographic and apparently the creation of the reserves initially met stiff opposition from the local fishing community. However, within a couple of years of the reserves, local fishermen were totally sold on the idea. It seems that the fish use the reserves as a safe place to spawn and subsequently local fish populations have boomed, meaning that despite the loss of the area around Poor Knights, fishermen have many more fish to catch than before.

The following morning we headed back down to the harbour to the Dive! Tutukaka shop. We were a bit apprehensive as it had been a month since the Great Barrier Reef and we were worried we’d forgotten some of what we’d learned. Fortunately the company organising the dive were absolutely brilliant. When they heard that us and another couple of blokes on the boat had not dived in cold water before, they gave us a guide to take us around the dive site because the buoyancy in cold and warm water is very different. The company’s boat took us out to the islands and we were pleased to see the sun was on its way out. We pulled up on the west side of the islands, which are sheltered from the ocean. The skipper gave us a briefing about all the fish and other animals we were likely to see. We pulled on our wetsuits. These were very different to those we’d used on the GBR. They consisted of an “undersuit“, which covered our legs and torso, and a long-sleeved jacket that had a tail-like appendage that came between the legs and fastened to the front of the jacket with poppers. It was every bit as funny as it sounds and the resulting effect made us look like we were wearing nappies! For that extra bit of elegance and style, the jackets had tasteful hoods to keep our heads warm!

Crikey! The water was absolutely freezing. As we jumped in it whipped our breath away, leaving us gasping for air as we bobbed up to the surface and wondering how we would ever control our breathing once diving. The initial shock had barely worn off as we began our descent underwater. We quickly found out why it is so different diving in cold water. We kept finding ourselves floating towards the surface and deflating and re-inflating our buoyancy jackets all the time. The guide had to put extra weights in both our weight belts - Chris had a new wetsuit on, which made buoyancy even more of a problem, and ended up carrying an extra 13kgs in his belt (compared to 6kg in GBR)!

The first creatures we were aware of were tiny baby jellyfish floating in the water. They were too small to have tentacles (they were about the side of one pence pieces) and were really pretty and colourful seen up close. It was a bit disconcerting feeling them on my hands every time I moved through the water and I’m glad so much of my face was covered. We swam over to a small cave where two huge short tailed rays were lurking in the shadows. They were as big as the ones we’d seen in the tank at Kelly Tarltons in Auckland, with a wingspan of about 1.5 metres. Very impressive and incredible to see so close. Then we swam off through the kelp and the rocks to see many more fish and crustaceans. Swimming in kelp was a new experience for both of us and we found it quite disconcerting. There doesn’t seem to be as much space as you have when swimming through coral reefs and quite often you have to get right down into weed to see the interesting things that are growing and living on the rocks. But there were loads of fish and some really cool black spiny urchins. The Gulf Stream apparently splits near this area and a breakaway stream goes past Poor Knights. This brings with it the lavae of some tropical fish such as we saw on the GBR who then grow and live here. Throughout the dive we were both finding buoyancy difficult and stressful, which meant we were using our air faster. This was particularly bad for Chris, with his brand spanking new wetsuit, and he ended up having to resurface a good 10 minutes before the rest of us. And to make it worse, he resurfaced just about the point when we saw a turtle making its way through the kelp. It was a comparatively small turtle (probably only 75cm wide) but very, very cool! It had been tagged and had seaweed growing from the tag, giving its shell the appearance of having a bright green Mohican. (For those ‘Finding Nemo’ fans among you, it was like, totally awesome dudes!)I arrived back on the boat to find Chris pretty dispirited and wondering if diving was really for him. He hadn’t been able to relax and enjoy the dive at all and was disappointed to have surfaced so early. Even a hot shower didn’t cheer him up and subsequently we both started to really worry about the next dive.

After lunch, I managed to knock my plastic water bottle in the sea beside the boat. Fortunately it floats and the skipper speedily retrieved it, as the punishment for littering in the reserve was a $20,000 fine or 3 years in jail! After lunch the boat made its way to the next island. As it approached we saw a large entrance to a cave. The boat went in and we found ourselves in a huge cave, the size of a cathedral. The acoustics were amazing - the skipper got us all to shout as loud as we could and listen to the subsequent echo. Bands and orchestras even hold gigs in there! It must be amazing.

We moored at the next dive site and plunged in. The water was less of a shock this time and the adjustments to our weight belt (the dive guide decided that this time Chris would have 14kg) made all the difference. We both found our buoyancy and breathing much better and had loads of time just to swim and enjoy all the amazing fish life we were seeing. Chris saw some moray eels, which the guide had found for us, but I always seemed to be stuck behind someone else or looking the wrong way at the opportune moment. Pants! We both really, really enjoyed the dive and I actually managed to stay under for 50 minutes before I had to resurface because I was getting low on air. Scuba diving rocks!

Our encounter with the local seal life was not over. We watched gannets diving and as the boat sped back towards the mainland, someone shouted “dolphins!” Skipper slowed the boats and in the distance we saw a whole pod swimming towards us. We could not believe the speed they were swimming at. They caught up the boat and were jumping around in the wake and across the bows. They were so close and we could see them really clearly. Apparently they were common dolphins but it was an uncommon experience (ha ha - hysterical laughing please)! It was absolutely amazing, they were jumping in the air and just seemed love swimming with the boat.

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