North Island Adventure Part 2

With only a month left in New Zealand and Hillery's report submitted, we decided it was time to go and have a look at the northern part of the north island: Ninety Mile Beach, Bay of Islands, Auckland.

But before the rubber hit the road, we of course went to PAK’n SAVE.



Day one of our north of the North Island tour. After Sawyer’s hockey game we drove to Bulls, where we met up with Aunt Julia and had lunch at the Mothered Goose café.





Bulls sits on flat land. If it weren’t for the occasional palm or lemon tree, you’d swear you somewhere in the U.S. Midwest. After a delicious meal followed by “the best custard squares in New Zealand” we headed on to Woodlyn Park near the Waitomo caves.

“Sleep like a hobbit! Sleep in a plane! Sleep in a train! Sleep in the Waitanic!” barks Billy Black, founder of Woodlyn Park. And he delivers. But how do you choose? We slept in a plane on our way to New Zealand—sort of. So we thought we’d give the train a shot.





Here's the Waitanic, a Fairmile WWII Patrol Boat:



Here's the plane motel, a 1950's Bristol cargo plane:



Waitomo is in farm country in the central part of the North Island. Below this pastoral landscape is an elaborate network of glow worm caves. Glow worms, you’ll remember from our South Island posts, are fungus fly larva. They spin weblike structures on damp canyon walls and cave ceilings, which is impressive but not a major draw for tourists.

So, these crazy Kiwis taught the larva to glow in the dark and look like stars. Shazam! Folks by the busload magically appear with fistfuls of cash just to climb down into caves to see what they can see any clear night. Nevermind the caves sit on the geologically volatile and unstable Ring of Fire.



The glow worms really made an impression on Ivy. The Glow Worm Cave tour concludes with a boat ride out of the cave. The water’s surface reflects the glow worms. Stars all around!



Here is Hillery at the Waitomo Caves Discovery Center checking out the cave simulator.



So, in Waitomo we slept in a train and saw fungus fly larva in a cave. Try doing that at Disneyland!



Black water rafting is also available in the Waitomo Caves, if donning a wetsuit and coal miner’s helmet and floating on an inner tube for three to five hours through a cave in complete darkness is your sort of thing. Well, it’s not completely dark. Don’t forget about the glow worms.

We decided the Kiwi Culture Show at Woodlyn Park was more our speed.

Bucky Black, Billy Black’s associate, put on a dusty, burlap-curtain performance for us, some Japanese tourists, and a small crowd of university students. Part New Zealand history lesson; part animal act, the Kiwi Culture Show leverages its close proximity to Waitomo Caves for all its worth. You couldn’t contrive a more bizarre business model: Let’s offer glow worm tourists plane, train, ship, or hobbit house accommodation and moonwalking pigs.

You really have to see it to believe it.



On our way to find a pot of gold:

Makara Beach

Sawyer woke up early and asked if I could make pancakes for breakfast. “Of course,” I said and gleefully sprang from my bed and ran to the kitchen. Well, not exactly. But I did make him some Vogel’s fruit and spice toast before we borrowed the neighbors’ car and went to Wellington Indoor Sports for his weekly field hockey game. His team, the Keas, crushed the Indians 11 to 1. Sawyer is a great goalie.

After the game we drove to the coast west of Wellington at Makara Headland. Wellington feels like home, but without a car, the surrounding countryside has remained a bit mysterious.



Today was our last opportunity to hike the Makara Walkway before it closes until October for the lambing season. On the way, we stopped at The Original German Bakery at Kelburn Shops to round out our picnic lunch with a rosemary foccacia. Past the Wellington suburb of Karori, city abruptly gives way to sheep country: brush and pasture. On Makara Road, we threaded steep hills and valleys to Makara Beach at Ohariu Bay.

Makara Beach is an old fishing village consisting of a couple dozen weather-beaten homes and a café. “Do you suppose that still gets good signal?” Hillery asked pointing to the house closest to the beach, atop of which sat a severely rusted satellite dish.

After a brief jaunt along the stony beach, the track headed south and up a steep, grassy hill. To the east, white sheep dotted green hills that seemed to go on forever. As we climbed, the blades of a wind generator came swinging over the hilltop.



Makara Beach is normally quite windy and today was no exception. It is an apt location for Wellington’s Project West Wind, a wind farm completed in 2009 and consisting of 62 turbines. The farm produces enough electricity to power every home in Wellington.

If you’ve never been close to a wind generator, they look like mounted 747’s with caricature-sized propellers. They are impossibly huge. I’ve seen buildings this tall, but they didn’t move. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The tips of the aerofoils must have moved at more than a hundred miles an hour. Some people find their sound eerie, but to me it’s the sound coal, oil, and uranium make when they stay in the ground.



The track followed a narrow strip of land between the pasture fence and a precipice a hundred yards above the rocky shore. The view was terrific but intimidating with the wind gusting our feet sideways. At the top of the hill were several crumbling World War II artillery emplacements pointing west toward the Tasman Sea.

At the artillery emplacements, the track turned inland through the wind farm and sheep pasture. We saw no lambs, but the ewes looked awfully full. Dozens of white wind turbines receded into the eastern horizon, all at the wind’s attention and spinning in time. A quick descent down a service road turned us back toward the sea.

The smooth grey stone beach was strewn with drift wood. We found a rocky recess out of the wind to have our picnic: carrot chips with horseradish cream, grapes, nectarines, tasty cheese, the foccacia from the bakery, and mint slices for dessert.



We took our time walking back to the car, the kids combing the beach for paua shells, an old rope, pumice stones, which Sawyer later floated in the bathtub and used to scrub his feet, a very stiff-bristled paint brush, and a very gnarled stick.





Our legs tired, our cheeks rosy, we headed back to Wellington. John and Laura, our neighbors who’d lent us their car, treated us to pizza and beer.

“What are we doing tomorrow?” asked Sawyer. Let’s hope all that fresh air makes us sleep like babies.

A Fine Day in Wellington

Spent the day puttering around the Botanic Gardens with Ivy. Here's a view from the lookout atop the cable car tracks.

Ivy Walks Home from School

Ivy's preeschool is only two blocks away, but it's in the next valley: 239 vertical steps away. A stroller is out of the question. When we first arrived, I could carry her. But she's too big now. As you can see she's now standing, and more importantly walking, on her own two feet.

Hillery Finishes Project Report

Hillery turned in her 108-page project report, titled “Building Bridges to Protect Health: Enhanced Partnerships among Animal, Human, and Ecosystem Health Sectors in New Zealand.” Phew! Just reading the title wears me out. We celebrated with a couple bottles of wine, courtesy of Hillery’s mentor Doug Lush, at Liquidate and then with another at Maria Pia’s Trattoria.

Sawyer's First Tooth - Part 2

Sawyer loses his first tooth, which happens to be the first tooth he got. Easy come, easy go. This video documents the whole affair. It’s a bit long but comical, showing both Ivy’s and Sawyer’s humors. Would you let your little sister swing a door tied to your tooth?

Dustin turns 40

I turn 40. Not young. Not old. After a trip to the dentist, a haircut, and a massage, I felt like I was 39 again. The kids and Hillery baked me two cakes: a coffee cake for breakfast and a carrot cake for holding 40 candles. We had a nice dinner at the Shepherd’s Arms Ale House, after which we took a moonlit stroll through the Botanic Gardens.