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Published: April 28th 2009
Now that I have got all the photos sorted from the previous blogs (sorry for any hassle, great blog site but it has the odd problem now and then!) I can keep going with this last blog. And include a couple of links for further info.
Theres something about the last blog of a trip. It takes forever to write and publish. We're back at work now, busy catching up with what went on while we were away, getting the garden looking vaguely under control (doesnt help that its raining!)...
So, anyway, back from where I left off last time...
Friday 17th April 2009 Up early today. Not that we really woke up any earlier than usual, we were awake, and up, before the alarm went off, but we couldnt stay in bed for too long this morning. We had places to be. Another soak would have been quite nice, but our togs were still wet, and by now, cold, so that was slightly off-putting.
Today was by far the most expensive day of the trip. We had treated ourselves to a trip out to White Island. We needed to be at the PeeJay office (and cafe
and hotel!) by 8.45am, and we were still a little way out of Whakatane. And we needed some petrol, preferably before we even got to Whakatane!
Not far out of the campground we got stopped at some road works. Due to the complete lack of anything registering on the petrol gauge, we cut the engine while we were waiting. Almost straight away, one of the road workers came up to us and was asking if we were ok, could we get the van started again. Not a problem, as long as the promised petrol station really was right round the corner! Still he hovered round us under we got going again (the van started first time). And yes, the gas station was just round the corner, and along the road a while.
Full of petrol again, we easily found the large HQ of
PeeJays White Island Tours - the only company with permission to land on White Island. The Island is privately owned and there are conditions to be met and limitations on landing etc.
White Island, or Whakaari, is NZ's most active volcano. Its smoking, steaming, hissing mass is about 50km off shore from Whakatane. Its not all that
big (324 hectares apparently) and is actually more than one volcano cone. Its on the same line, trench, fault, whatever, as Whale Island and Mt Putauaki (Mt Edgecombe).
Erosion has worn away much of the two older cones on the island, leaving the younger one to take centre stage in the middle of the island. According to our old LP, the highest point on the island is Mt Gisborne at 321m.
Historically, we dont have a lot of info on the island, without doing an internet search. Maori used to catch seabirds on the island for food. Captain Cook named it White Island in 1769 because of the white clouds of steam hanging over it. Rev. Henry Williams was the first European to land on it in 1826. Ownership has changed numerous times. Sulphur production has been attempted a few times, usually interrupted by eruptions or other volcanic activity. There was an eruption in 1885, then the following year Tarawera erupted causing abandonment of the island as well. The sulphur industry picked up again in 1898 but only lasted till 1901. Further mining operations started up in the 1910's, until 1913-14 when another eruption killed the crew on
the island at the time. Nothing was known of this eruption until the routine supply ship came round and no-one on the island answered the ships bell. Telegrams were sent to the mining offices in Auckland when the supply ship returned requesting a resuce mission,m but it was at least eight days before anyone landed on White Island to search for survivors. Stories have it that the only survivor was a cat, who was repatriated to the mainland to father many kittens.
The next industry was in the early 1930's. To try and avoid being wiped out by an eruption, they set up round the island slightly, and either came to work by boat (easier) or by hiking over the craters (far from easy). The remains of the processing buildings are still on the beach where we landed. There have been other eruptions since then, and as we said, White Island remains NZ's most active volcano.
After a 90 minute boat ride, on a custom made launch through 3m swells, we arrived in the bay by the rocky “wharf” we would land on. Armed with our hard hats and gas masks, we climbed aboard the RIB in small
groups for the short trip to shore. We flew in between the waves, with instructions to grab the ladders and climb out as soon as we could - speed was essential. It turned out not to be as bad as expected from the quick pre departure lecture. Sure the waves were big, but it was quite easy to get from the RIB to the battered rock / concrete jetty.
Once everyone was on the island, we started our guided tour. Rules state that you must be accompanied by the approved PeeJay guides, wear your hard hat and have a gas mask ready. Not knowing how often the gas masks were checked and the filters changed, I wasnt sure how much use they would be. Also, why was no-one carrying a gas alert monitor?
The tour round was pretty thorough in the sense that we got to see a bit of most of the different types of features there. Bubbling mud and water, hissing steam vents, yellow rock, grey water, pumice and the detritus of eruptions. It wasnt a long tour, and we did keep stopping. There wasnt a strong H2S smell, nothing like you get in Rotorua, but
More colour
OK, yellow is very much the predominant colour here, but its still colourful!in many places the air was very acidic. The sulphuric acid was at times almost overpowering, hence the gas masks. We were also issued with some lollies, ordinary hard boiled sweets, that seemed to counteract the burning of the acid nicely. It certainly seared the throat! Worse than being at work!
I'm going to leave the photos to hopefully describe the island better than I can here. So I'll move on to getting back onto the boat - as easy as getting onto the island. Lunch was served soon after getting back on the boat, a packed lunch of sandwiches, hash browns, fruit and a mini crunchie bar. Not bad, all meat free too!
On the way back to Whakatane, we went wildlife spotting. Not long after leaving the island, we passed huge schools of trevally and blue mao mao, all right on the surface feeding on the krill. There was also a pod of common bottlenose dolphins feeding, complete with quite a few young. Cute mini dolphins swimming around the boat! They were too busy feeding to jump and bow-wave ride much, but still great to see.
That night we drove along the BOP coast looking
for somewhere to pull up for the night. We stopped in one place we'd seen on the way down two weeks ago, only to find that we needed to pay $15 for the priviledge. Sure, we would have been one set of low dunes back from the beach, and there was an old toilet block there, but we were looking at saving some money. We met a German couple while reading the sign at this beach car park, and their map showed another camping place further along the coast. 'Course, their map showed all pay campgrounds too, so... We drove along, found a nice POP, but we hadnt filled the porta-potti so didnt want to stop. We did finally stop at the end of Pukehina Beach, in a surf club car park with another van already there (plus the Germans who were still following us). Lovely spot to park up, public toilets, beach on one side and estuary on the other, shame about the locals though! First was a couple of drunk (?) girls showing off. Turning up the stereo, dancing on the picnic bench, seemed more a case of attention seeking than anything else, pretty sad really. Then in
mini eruptions
you have to watch where you walk, this used to be like a blister on the island, till it popped when someone stood on it! the middle of the night sometime, someone turned up, did a donut in the car park and drove off again. Was the presense of three camper vans spoiling their nights entertainment?! Pukehina Beach seemed a really nice place to stay, if you could make your own entertainment at home.
Saturday 18th April 2009 After two long beach walks, with breakfast in between, we headed off towards Tauranga. First stop was McLaren Falls. Colin had memories of coming here, going swimming, climbing the rocks, having a picnic. All I knew of the place was that there are undiscovered dead bodies in the woods around the lake (Sensing Murder) and that you can go kayaking at night in glow worms caves somewhere near by. So neither of us really knew what to expect. What we did find was a lake, some woods, walking trails (short), camping, etc. Nice, but not stunning. The falls were really lame due to water being diverted for a hydro station, like at Wairoa, but Wairoa is still a bit more impressive, even with no water. So we walked round a bit, looked at the trees in their autumn colours, and headed off elsewhere.
Elsewhere was
a winery for a quick taste and shop. The real next elsewhere was the
Karangahake Gorge. We stopped at the Paeroa end of the gorge, in a very busy carpark, for lunch then some hiking. We headed up a smaller side gorge to some old gold mining areas. Our head torches were fading fast so we didnt see the full extent of the pump room and tunnels. It is certainly a place to come back again, with a better torch, or even the gas lantern.
There was a decent series of tunnels for us to walk through, with “windows” out to the valley. Like many places here, there were more than adequate signs explaining what used to be here, with photos and diagrams, and we could kind of see where the various bits of the mining operations had been.
We also walked part way along the gorge walkway, until the long tunnel. We went through the tunnel (luckily there were some lights inside) and out at the double layer bridge, cars underneath, trains on top. Then it was back to the car and off to Thames to see how much of the V8's Colin could catch.
The rest
of the evening was most enjoyably spent with Mel and Dave again.
And that was about the end of this trip. We drove up to Whangarei the following day, meeting rain along the way, ending the holiday on a “we might as well go back to work then” kind of note. Else, we should have turned around and headed south / south east again, and calling in sick monday morning. Something about the water we drank round Waikaremoana, we didnt purify it enough blah blah blah!
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