NZ North

This is the Bay of Islands, near the northern tip of the North Island. This is a view from the town of Russell, a famous whaling village that you can see towards the left. We ended up in a much smaller place named Opua, which is off to the left side across the bay.

This is a view from Opua; Russell is the peninsula you see at right. Opua wasn't our intended destination, it's just the engine died when we arrived, so we couldn't head for Whangarei, a yacht magnet 40nm down the coast. Adventures are sometimes expensive, especially when they take place on a boat. But, Opua is much prettier and we get a bonus in the mild Bay of Islands for testing all the new stuff we've had to pay for, mostly a new engine & genoa.

Anyway, we really wanted to get away from boats for awhile, so we rented a car and switched to road trips.

One of our trips took us to the west coast of the North Island. This is a view across the entrance to Hokianga Bay. The Tasman Sea is off to the left (west).

The sand dunes on the other side of the entrance are unbelievably huge. This bay is many miles deep but unfortunately the entrance is very shallow and the waters are rough.

In case the other photo didn't show shallow and rough, try this....This is the short cut to Brisbane, across the wild Tasman Sea. We like warm, sunny and tropical. You can stuff the southern Ocean and anyplace below 70 F.

Here we see a pretty girl standing in front of a kauri tree, New Zealand's version of the redwood. There are tree ferns showing on both sides of the picture. New Zealand is kind of a cross between Northern California and Hawaii, having trees both big and ferny.

This may look like Yellowstone, but it's really a geyser playground called Rotorua. The native Maoris were no dummies and used the hot springs here for cooking and nice hot mineral baths.

This is Lake Taupo, an awesomely huge volcanic crater near the center of the North Island. The eruption that formed this lake is one of the largest in recent geologic history, much bigger than Krakatoa. New Zealand takes its duties on the Pacific Ring of Fire very seriously.

This is a view of the south end of the lake near Turangi, the "Trout Fishing Capital of the World". Ironically, one dish you can't order in a restaurant is rainbow trout.

Hobbitheads may recognize this as "Mount Doom". Its real name is Ngauruhoe, which is not Maori for Mt Doom. This is Tongariro National Park, just about the only place where you can ski on an active volcano. The scenery for the "Lord of the Rings" movies may seem exotic, but after spending time in New Zealand it becomes quite familiar. This country is a paradise for winter sports and skiing is one of my cold weather passions. If we could combine the tropics with everything this Isle has to offer, New Zealand would be our Numero Uno Pick for immigration. Did I mention John and I just love the Outdoors!

This is the other side - not as photogenic. We were attempting to climb the peak when the admiral went lame and the captain had to retreat after approaching the summit. What you can't quite see in this photo is the steam rising from a vent on the left side of the peak. This perfect volcano is very much alive.

This is Mt Ruapehu, the ski slope/active volcano. Its recent eruptions have spawned massive lahars, mudflows that have caused numerous disasters in the last 50 years.

This is the end of 2005's adventures. Next year we started with a road trip aptly named NZ South, at the end of which we return to our N Island narrative:

This is a sunset over the Tasman Sea at the beach near Otaki on the SW coast of the N Island.

This is the poor 4WD truck we rented, stuck in a rut. We thought that 4WD vehicles were made to get out of such ruts but we needed a tow to get out of this one.

Our last destination was the lovely Coromandel Peninsula, a major gold-mining area in the late 19th Century.

Kiwis are ever pragmatic.

This is a view of Mercury Bay, named by Capt Cook when he used it to take observations of the planet Mercury.

This is a view of Mercury Bay as seen through Cathedral Rock.

Our road trip continues to the spectacular South Island!

We spent about 5 weeks on this road trip, which is just not enough time. We can't begin to describe the scenic wonders of New Zealand, which have to be seen to be believed.

Well, back at the ranch, er, boat. This is the old tub in Opua with 4 expensive coats of Micron-66 bottom paint. The launch was uneventful, though the transmission didn't work. We're now ready for our next sailing adventure, which is to the exotic islands of Fiji.

In a day or so we will depart NZ, to Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomons and New Guinea, finishing the year in Australia, if we don't sail up to Micronesia. That's the plan anyway.

OK, we departed - on to Fiji!

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