Kayaking Bay of Islands

The short version:

We kayaked from Waitangi to Rawhiti and camped there for 5 nights. Our longest kayak was to Hole In The Rock (Cape Brett), which was about 23 Km total (there & back). We hired two double "Sea Bear Packhorses" from Auckland (hauled up to the Bay of Islands on Darryn's Holden Commodore), and one from Waitangi.

The long version:

This was a most excellent holiday, lots of fresh air, exercise, adventure and gossip.

We left from Auckland on the 2^nd of Jan. We were a bit worried about these 2 huge great big kayaks on Darryn's car. Darryn was in a bit of a bad mood over something or other (I can tell you that safely because Darryn never reads these log reports). We were also taking Andy (our Swiss friend) up to the Bay of Islands for him to camp with some people at Bland Bay.

On that night we stayed with Karlene's Mother in Whangarei - had pizza for dinner. We had trouble finding the pizza place - how hard can it be in a town as small as Whangarei for goodness sake? We played the dictionary game that night, quite fun.

In the morning we set off for Waitangi to pick up kayak #3 - we were a lot later than we thought (after mucking around in Paihia for ages) and didn't get to the kayak place till 11am or so. It was about 1pm by the time we set off (it takes a while to put all your gear in plastic bags and shove them in kayak holds, and also Brendan's spray jacket didn't fit so he had to run up to the house to get another one). We did really good time getting over to Rawhiti, and arrived there by 5pm. We got lots of curious stares from those in the campground. I guess they don't get too many people paddling in!

Next day we were going to circumnavigate Urupukapuka, but the wind really picked up by the time we got to the islands, so we ended up sitting in the café/bar place on the Island waiting for the wind to die down (it's really hard paddling against the wind!). In the end (after maybe 2 hours of waiting) we decided to change our plans and kayak around to a really nice beach that was around the point from Rawhiti (Oke Bay I think it was called). We thought it might be a little sheltered there, but we were wrong. It was quite a tail wind on our way round there - a reasonable swell too. Lucky or Sea Bears are very stable, no worries about falling out! When we got to the bay it was nice and calm water, but not much shelter from the wind, which was gale force. The water was nice and refreshing (ie freezing) when we went for a swim. We were quite worried about getting back round the point, as we would be paddling against the wind for quite a while (and some of us were quite stuff already). We even considered lifing the kayaks over to the other side on the point (it was only a very small stretch of land, but a very steep hill in the way), but rules this out as the kayaks were damn heavy, and the path was damn steep. So we gritted our teeth ready for the hell-paddle back. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as bad as we expected and we got back safely.

Next day - we put our Urupukapuka circumnavigation plan into action! The weather was much improved thank goodness. It was a very pleasant day and we really achieved something. We also went snorkling, but although the water was nice and clear we didn't see many fish.

Next day - today was the big one - Hole In The Rock day. Trudy had been whining about Hole in the Rock the whole holiday - she really wanted to kayak through it. We didn't think we would be able to as you need really calm weather to be able to do it safely. It's also quite a way away from Rawhiti, we didn't know if we could make it there and back in good time. Well we started paddling towards it thinking we would see how good time we made, and make the decision whether to keep going or not. We made quite good time, and it looked so close by the time we were half way there, that we just had to keep going. By the way the weather was much improved, nearly dead calm! Yay we made it to Hole in the Rock and Yay we got to paddle through it. Then we had to paddle back to somewhere we could stop for lunch, and by the time we got there we were stuffed, and really needed to stand up. We had been paddling for about 5 hours straight (ok, I'm not quite sure if that's right, I can't remember anymore). We then went for a kayak - again not many fish. Cold water too. We had a long rest on a rocky beach, thawing out in the sun after the freezing swim. Then we paddled back to camp (stopped for an icecream on the way - yes there is a shop out there!).

Last day - Karlz's birthday, time to go home. We knew this wouldn't take too long, so we stopped on Roberton Island to try out the snorkling trail. It was quite interesting - there is a lagoon an the island where they have put some underground signs about the fish etc. There were heaps of people there. It was quite funny snorkling in this waist deep water, which was actually a little murky because of all the people churning it up. At least it was warm! Lovely and warm actually. Did I mention that for summer the weather hadn't been very hot? That's La Nina for you. So after that we paddled back and rendezvouzed with the kayak guy to show him that his kayak was still in one piece. He sounded quite impressed with what we had done. He was quite nice to us, letting us use his washing stuff to wash our other two kayaks that didn't belong to him. He seemed like a pretty good guy. He was American and runs kayaking tours.

Anyway, then we hoisted the kayaks back up onto Darryn's car and headed back to Whangarei (stopping at Paihia on the way to do some of our normal mucking around). McD's in Whangarei for dinner. Karlz's Mum's for the night again (isn't she generous!). Back to Auckland and boring civilization the next day.

Memorable Moments:

• Darryn shouting "Go Packhorse, Go" every 2 minutes (did someone say they thought he was strange?)
• The Blair Witch track on the way back from Oke Bay (getting lost in the bush, coming across piles of stones and sticks stuck into the ground).
• The little kitten in the campground - he was soooo cute. We wanted to take him home with us.
• Karlene and Keith's little tiffs - great amusement. (can't say too much because I know Karlene will be reading this. Smile Karlene!).