Opua: the northern most cow in New Zealand
Opua: the northern most cow in New Zealand
we are back on the boat, having driven to Cape Reinga, the northern most point in New Zealand. While this is only a little more than 100 miles north and slightly west of here, the roads are slow and the scenery good, so we took two days and spent the night at the northern most motel in New Zealand, which is located in Pukenui, on Houhora Harbor. We also saw the northern most cow in New Zealand, as well as the northern most sheep. I thought about taking a photo of the cow, but it was just another cow, so I didn’t and settled for the above photo of the lighthouse at Cape Reinga instead. The northern most cow was about five miles south of the lighthouse; and although New Zealand is famous for sheep, not cows, was a mile north of the northern most sheep.
Besides it’s spectacular setting, Cape Reinga lighthouse is noteworthy because it is now lit by a 50 watt bulb.
The motel at Pukenui is a second-rate motel in a first rate location on a hill just above a small wharf used by a few local commercial boats. We watched one unload thousand kilo sacks of mussels dredged from a farm in the harbor. We read the weigh from a scale attached to the crane as it lifted the sacks onto the wharf.
Houhora Harbor is well protected once a boat gets inside past a high hill, Mount Camel, to the north and a low spit to the south, but dries out 80% to 90% at low tide. I could get THE HAWKE OF TUONELA in, but probably never will.
The New Zealand holiday is in full swing. Fortunately I called the day before our arrival and managed to reserve the last room available at the motel.
All along the way, camp grounds were full and ‘no vacancy’ signs common. Also common was a band of pretty yellow wild flowers beside the road. OZ is supposed to be the next country to the west, but we seemed to be driving along a yellow brick road.
Pahia is a zoo. We couldn’t even get into line at one of the two service stations to top up our rental car before returning it, and the sidewalks and cafes are filled to overflowing with holidaying Kiwis.
In the fishing club at Pukenui, where we had dinner, a man who engaged us in conversation said he kept his boat at the Opua Marina, but had come up to Houhora Harbor to escape the Aucklanders who congregate in the Bay of Islands at this time of year. But then he confessed to being an Aucklander himself.
This country has perhaps the most consistently pleasing landscape of any, but all those hills make for narrow, winding roads that are tiring to drive. Four or five hours behind the wheel here is like ten or twelve in the U.S., and I was very glad to get back and row away from the shore to the serenity of the mooring.y
Wednesday, January 3, 2007